NHS Overtime & Extra Shifts Log
Log every extra shift you pick up and watch a running year-to-date total build — hours worked, estimated extra pay, and a month-by-month breakdown, saved to your own account.
Just want to value a single shift, no saved history? Use the NHS Overtime Calculator.
Short answer
This tool logs every extra shift you work — date, hours, rate multiplier and an optional unsocial hours flag and note — and saves it to your own free account. It values every shift using the same formula as the standalone Overtime Calculator, then rolls everything up into a running year-to-date total (for the current UK tax year, 6 April – 5 April) and a simple month-by-month table, so you can see at a glance how much extra you've actually worked and earned this year, without re-adding up payslips or old shift notes yourself.
Why a log, not just a calculator
The standalone NHS Overtime Calculator is genuinely useful for a single question — "what's this one shift worth?" — but it's a one-shot tool by design: enter numbers, get an answer, and the moment you navigate away, that answer is gone. That's fine if you only ever want to check one shift at a time, but it can't answer the question a lot of NHS staff who regularly pick up extra shifts actually want answered: "how much extra have I worked and earned this year, across everything I've picked up?"
This Log exists to answer that second question. Every shift you add is saved against your own account, so the running total is still there the next time you check — whether that's a week later after your next extra shift, or a few months later when you're wondering whether extra earnings might be worth factoring into a tax or pension conversation. It's built to be opened regularly, not once.
Why the log uses the UK tax year, not the calendar year
The UK tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April, not 1 January to 31 December — and it's the same period FrontlinePay's income tax, National Insurance and pension calculations already use across the Pay Calculator and every tool built on the same engine. Using the same boundary here keeps this log consistent with the rest of the site, and it's a genuinely relevant period for extra earnings specifically: if you were ever checking whether a heavy year of overtime might push pensionable pay growth high enough to matter for an Annual Allowance tax charge, that's assessed by tax year too.
Practically, this means your running total resets at the start of each new tax year (6 April), and the log always shows you which tax year window it's currently totalling. Past years' entries aren't deleted — they just fall outside the window the headline total and month-by-month table are currently summing.
What the estimated pay figure includes — and what it doesn't
ℹThis is a gross figure, before tax
Every logged shift's "extra pay" is calculated the same way the standalone NHS Overtime Calculator works out a single shift: your basic hourly rate × hours worked × your chosen multiplier. That's the value of the hours themselves, before income tax, National Insurance or NHS Pension Scheme contributions are taken off — it is not what actually lands in your bank account. For that, use the Rota & Take-Home Calculator, which combines a month's basic pay, unsocial hours and overtime into one figure and taxes it correctly, once, the way a real payslip does.
The optional "unsocial hours" tick box on each entry is deliberately just a label for your own records, not an automatic calculation. The actual Section 2 unsocial hours enhancement — 30% for weekday nights and Saturdays, 60% for Sundays and bank holidays — depends on exactly which hours within a shift fell into which window, which this simple log doesn't ask for. If you want that worked out properly, use the Unsocial Hours Calculator alongside this log, or model a full month (basic pay, unsocial hours and overtime together, correctly taxed once) on the Rota & Take-Home Calculator.
Overtime vs unsocial hours: worth keeping separate in your head
It's easy to lump "extra money for a hard shift" into one mental category, but NHS pay treats two genuinely different things separately. Unsocial hours enhancements are paid because of when you work — nights, Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays — and are set nationally under Section 2 of the Agenda for Change handbook at fixed rates for Bands 1–7. Overtime is paid because you worked more hours than your contract requires, regardless of the time of day, and the multiplier is whatever your trust has locally agreed — commonly somewhere between plain time (1.0x) and double time (2.0x), but genuinely variable. A single extra shift can trigger one, both, or neither, depending on when it fell and whether it was beyond your contracted hours. This log is built around the overtime side of that distinction — see the Unsocial Hours Calculator for the other.
Turning a logged pattern into a real take-home figure
Knowing you worked 24 extra hours this month is useful. Knowing what that's actually worth after tax, alongside your basic pay and any unsocial hours enhancement, is more useful — because UK income tax and National Insurance are progressive, so extra hours on top of your normal pay are typically taxed at your marginal rate, not your average rate. That's exactly what the NHS Rota & Take-Home Calculator is built for: take a typical month from this log — your basic pay, any unsocial hours, and your overtime hours — and see one accurate, correctly-taxed combined take-home figure for it, rather than a rough gross estimate.
What this log can't do
- ✕ It doesn't pull hours automatically from an e-rostering system — every shift is entered by you.
- ✕ It doesn't apply tax, National Insurance or pension deductions — every total shown is gross, before those come off.
- ✕ It doesn't automatically calculate the Section 2 unsocial hours enhancement — the checkbox is a label for your own records, not a calculation.
- ✕ It can't confirm your trust's actual overtime multiplier — that's set locally and you need to check your own payslip or policy.
Why trust this tool
- ✓ Every shift is valued using the exact same formula as the already-verified standalone Overtime Calculator, not a re-implementation
- ✓ Your data is private to your own account — Firestore security rules only ever allow you to read or write your own log, never anyone else's
- ✓ Core logging (adding, editing, deleting shifts, the year-to-date total, the month-by-month table) is completely free
- ✓ Uses the UK tax year (6 April – 5 April), the same period as FrontlinePay's other pay and pension tools, clearly labelled on screen
- ✓ Clearly labelled as a gross, before-tax figure — with a direct link to the Rota & Take-Home Calculator for the real, taxed number
More tools & guides
NHS Rota & Monthly Take-Home Calculator
See what a typical logged month actually nets after tax.
NHS Overtime Calculator
Value a single shift, no account or saved history needed.
Unsocial Hours Calculator
Nights, weekends & bank holiday enhancements, properly worked out.
NHS Annual Leave Tracker
Log booked leave and track it against your entitlement.
NHS Pay Calculator
Band, point & region → exact take-home pay, today.
Your Account
Manage your sign-in and check your Pro status.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the NHS Overtime Calculator? +
The standalone Overtime Calculator answers a one-off question — 'if I work X hours at my rate and multiplier, what's that worth?' — and forgets the answer the moment you close the tab. This Log answers a running question: 'how much extra have I actually worked and earned so far this tax year?'. Every shift you log is saved to your account, valued using the exact same calculation the standalone calculator uses, and rolled up into a year-to-date total and a month-by-month breakdown you can check back on any time.
Do I need an account? +
Yes — this tool only works if it remembers your logged shifts between visits, and the only safe way to do that is to save them against your own signed-in account, so nobody else can see or edit your log. Creating an account is free and takes a few seconds.
Why does the log run on the UK tax year (6 April – 5 April) instead of the calendar year? +
Because it matches the period FrontlinePay's other pay tools already use, and because it's a genuinely meaningful boundary for 'how much extra have I earned' tracking — for example, if you were ever checking whether extra earnings might affect an Annual Allowance pension tax charge, that's assessed by tax year, not calendar year. The log automatically shows you which tax year you're currently in and resets the running total at the boundary.
How is my estimated pay calculated? +
Every entry is run through the exact same formula as the standalone NHS Overtime Calculator: your basic hourly rate × the hours you logged × the rate multiplier you entered (1.0x plain time, 1.5x time-and-a-half, 2.0x double time, or a custom figure). It isn't a separate or re-implemented calculation — it's the same engine, just applied automatically to every saved entry instead of one form at a time.
What does the 'unsocial hours' checkbox actually do? +
It's an informational tag for your own records only — ticking it doesn't add an automatic Section 2 enhancement to the estimated pay figure, because that calculation depends on exactly which hours (weekday night, Saturday, Sunday/bank holiday) were unsocial, which this simple log doesn't ask for. If you want the actual unsocial hours enhancement worked out properly, use the standalone Unsocial Hours Calculator alongside this log, or model the whole month on the Rota & Take-Home Calculator, which does combine both.
Is the total shown here gross or net (after tax)? +
Gross — it's the value of the extra hours themselves at your rate and multiplier, before income tax, National Insurance or pension are taken into account, exactly like the standalone Overtime Calculator's headline figure. To see what a typical month like this actually nets after tax, use the Rota & Take-Home Calculator, which runs your combined monthly gross (basic pay plus any unsocial hours and overtime) through the same tax, NI and pension engine used across FrontlinePay.
Can I log a shift that also had unsocial hours enhancement AND overtime? +
This log tracks one number per entry — your hours at a chosen multiplier — so if a shift genuinely earned both an unsocial hours enhancement and an overtime uplift, you have two honest options: log it here using just the overtime portion and track the unsocial element separately with the Unsocial Hours Calculator, or treat the whole shift as a single "effective multiplier" you work out from a payslip. Neither is wrong, but be consistent with whichever approach you pick so your running total stays meaningful.
Can I edit or delete a logged shift? +
Yes — every entry has an Edit and a Delete option, so you can fix a mistake or remove a shift you logged in error. There's no undo, so double-check before deleting.
Is my logged data private? +
Yes. Your shifts are stored in your own account record, and Firestore security rules only ever allow you — the signed-in user whose ID matches the record — to read or write it. No other FrontlinePay user or visitor can see your log.
What's the difference between the free and Pro versions? +
Logging shifts, editing and deleting entries, the year-to-date total and the month-by-month breakdown are all completely free — the goal is to build a habit of logging every extra shift as you pick it up, not to hide the useful part behind a paywall. FrontlinePay Pro (or the cheaper Career Toolkit) adds a downloadable PDF report of your full tax year's log, useful for your own records.