Work rota planner: build and cost the weekly rota
- Cost of the week at the rate entered
- £4,270.56
- Shifts to fill in the week
- 42
- Rota hours in the week
- 336
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.
A work rota planner is the thing between deciding you open seven days with two shifts a day and knowing who is standing behind the counter on Thursday evening. It sounds like a grid and it is, but the grid has four numbers behind it that a spreadsheet almost never holds together at once. There are the shifts you have to fill, which come from the days you open and the people each shift needs, not from who happens to be free. There are the hours that adds up to, per person and across the team, which decide whether anyone is over the weekly limit or under their contract. There is the cost of the week at each person's rate, which is the number the owner actually cares about. And there is the change: the swap agreed by text and the shift covered for someone off sick, which is where every spreadsheet rota quietly stops being true.
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Fill the shifts, not the people
Start from the days you open, the shifts in a day and the people each shift needs. Seven days, two shifts and three people a shift is 42 shifts to fill, and eight hours each is 336 rota hours, before a single name goes on the grid.
Check the hours per person
Spread those hours across the team and read the average. 336 hours over twelve people is 28 a head, which leaves 20 hours of headroom under the 48 hour weekly limit and sits two hours under a 30 hour contract, so the week is short of contracted hours, not over.
Cost it before you publish it
Multiply the rota hours by the rate. At £12.71 an hour the worked week costs £4,270.56, or £610.08 a day, which is the number to hold against what the week is expected to take before anyone is told their shifts.
Work rota planner: common questions
Should the rota be built from the shifts or from the staff?
From the shifts. Start with what the business needs covered and the hours that adds up to, then put people on it. A rota built from who is available fills the easy shifts and leaves the ones that matter empty, and it never tells you what the week costs.
How do I know if someone is over the 48 hour limit?
Read the average rota hours per person and the headroom the worksheet returns. On the worked example 28 hours a head leaves 20 hours of headroom. The 48 hours is an average over 17 weeks on GOV.UK's rule, so one heavy week is not a breach on its own, but a pattern of them is.
What happens to the rota when someone swaps a shift?
On a spreadsheet, usually nothing, which is the problem. In Weekrota Pro the swap is made on the rota by a named person, the published version updates, and the hour and cost totals move with it, so the record payroll is run from is the record the team actually worked.
Is this a free rota planner?
Yes. The work rota template on this site is free, with no account, no card and no cap on how many weeks you work out. Keeping the rota week to week is Weekrota Pro at £6.50 a month for the whole team.
Can I use it as a rota calculator?
Yes. Enter the people, days open, shifts a day, hours a shift, people a shift and the hourly rate, and it returns the shifts to fill, the rota hours, the hours per head and the cost of the week. The worked example is 42 shifts, 336 hours and £4,270.56.
What goes on a staff rota planner for the week?
The days across and the shifts each day needs, the people on each shift, and the totals: hours per person, the week's cost at each rate, and contracted hours beside rota hours. A weekly rota without the totals tells you who is on, but not whether the week is covered or what it costs.
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 Free for 14 days. No card needed. PricingThe first 14 days are free and no card is asked for. Add a card during the trial and the first charge is on the day it ends; do not, and your workspace becomes read-only with nothing deleted. Weekrota 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.
Will it do what you need for Work rota planner?
Tell us how your rota works now and what keeps going wrong with it, and we will tell you plainly whether Weekrota does it.