Work rota template
- Cost of the week at the rate entered
- £4,270.56
- Shifts to fill in the week
- 42
- Rota hours in the week
- 336
- Average rota hours per person
- 28
Nothing in these worksheets is a figure we found somewhere, with one exception that is labelled: the worked example's hourly rate is the April 2026 National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over as GOV.UK publishes it, and you replace it with your own average. Every other number comes from the inputs you enter and the arithmetic stated on the page: days open times shifts a day times people a shift times hours a shift; salary over contracted hours times paid weeks. The defaults are a worked example of a common small team, not a recommendation and not a benchmark.
The figures above start from a worked example (£4,270.56). Change any input and the answer updates as you type.
Download the Work rota template worked example (CSV)
This is the week's sheet, and it does the arithmetic a rota spreadsheet is supposed to do and usually gets wrong in one specific place. Give it the people on the rota, the days you open, the shifts in a day, the hours in a shift, the people each shift needs, an average hourly rate and the hours each person's contract promises. It returns the shifts to fill, the rota hours in the week, the average hours per person, what the week and one day cost at the rate entered, the contracted hours across the team, the gap between what you have contracted and what you have put on the rota, and the headroom per person under the 48 hour weekly limit. The place spreadsheets go wrong is the gap: on the worked example the rota uses 336 hours against 360 contracted, so twelve people are paid for 24 hours nobody is on the rota for.
The shifts and the hours, off the days you open
Seven days open with two shifts a day and three people on each is 42 shifts to fill, and at eight hours a shift that is 336 rota hours in the week. Enter your own days, shifts and people and the count follows; a six day week with one straight shift is simply a smaller number, not a different spreadsheet.
The cost of the week, at the rate you enter
336 hours at £12.71 is £4,270.56 for the week and £610.08 a day. The rate is an average across the team and it is yours to set; the worked example uses the National Living Wage for 21 and over because that is the floor most of these roles sit on.
Contracted against rota'd, which is where sheets go wrong
Twelve people on 30 contracted hours is 360 hours the business has promised to pay. The rota uses 336, so 24 contracted hours are being paid that nobody is on the rota for, and each person averages 28 hours with 20 hours of headroom under the 48 hour weekly limit. Almost every spreadsheet totals the rota and never sets it against the contracts.
Work rota template: common questions
Why does it ask for people per shift rather than names?
Because the rota's cost and coverage are decided before any name goes on it. Three people on each of two shifts across seven days is 42 shifts and 336 hours whoever works them. Put the names on afterwards, and the paid record on this site is where they live.
What rate should I enter?
Your own average across the people on the rota. The worked example uses £12.71, the April 2026 National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over as GOV.UK publishes it, because that is the floor for most of the roles this sheet is written for. If you pay more, enter more.
What does a negative contracted-hours gap mean?
That the rota uses more hours than the team's contracts add up to, so someone is working over their contracted hours, which is fine if agreed and expensive if not. A positive gap, as on the worked example, means contracted hours are being paid that the rota does not use.
Weekrota Pro
Keeping the rota
The worksheet gives you one week's hours and cost. Pro remembers it: the people, their rates and contracted hours, every week's shifts, every swap and every change, and the totals that follow when a shift moves.
- Download the rota as a file you can send to the team
- Publish it without the Weekrota watermark across it
- Come back to this week's rota with the shifts still in it
- Put your own logo on the rotas your staff see
- Take every week, every shift and every person out at once, as a file
- Send a member of staff their shifts for the week without leaving the rota
- Not used by Weekrota: nothing here takes a payment from your staff
- Push the week's rota cost across to the books as a wage accrual
£7per month, whole team
Start Weekrota Pro PricingWeekrota Pro is £6.50 a month and renews on the same date each month at the same £6.50 until you cancel. There is no introductory rate, no minimum term and no automatic step up in price. If the price ever changes you keep the price you signed at.
Cite or embed this figure
Work rota template (Cost of the week at the rate entered): £4,270.56, Weekrota, worked example.
Cite as: "Work rota template, Weekrota", updated 2026-09-05, https://weekrota.com/tools/work-rota-template/.