Calculating your loaded hourly rate
The real cost of an hour of labour — including super, leave loading, WorkCover, and the overhead drag of running the business.
If you ask most field service operators “what does an hour of your labour cost you?” they'll quote the base rate — $32, $38, $45. That's the number on the payslip. It's not the number you should be quoting against.
The real cost of an hour of labour — the “loaded” rate — includes everything you have to pay to employ that person plus the cost of the time they're not actually working a billable job.
The components
Superannuation
The Superannuation Guarantee (SG) rate in Australia is currently 11.5% and is scheduled to reach 12% by 1 July 2025. Always check current rates. This is paid on top of base wages.
Leave loading
Most awards require a 17.5% loading on top of base pay during annual leave for permanent staff. Spread across the year, this is roughly a 1.3-1.4% effective load.
Public holidays and sick leave
Permanent staff are entitled to paid public holidays (10 nationally, plus state-specific days) and personal/carer's leave (10 days/year). Together these represent ~20 paid non-working days, or roughly an 8% effective load on a 250-working-day year.
WorkCover
State-based workers' compensation insurance. Premium rates vary by state and industry classification, typically 1-3% for outdoor field service work. Check your scheme — NSW iCare, VWA in Victoria, WorkCover Queensland, etc.
Casual loading
Casual employees typically receive a 25% loading in lieu of paid leave entitlements. This means a casual at $40/hr base is being paid $40/hr for working time, but the underlying “permanent equivalent” is $32/hr — useful to know when comparing costs across permanent and casual mixes.
The maths for a permanent employee
Take a base rate of $35/hr for a tradesperson on a permanent contract:
- Base: $35.00
- + Superannuation (11.5%): $4.03
- + Leave loading allowance (~1.4%): $0.49
- + Public holiday + leave allowance (~8%): $2.80
- + WorkCover (~2%): $0.70
Loaded rate: ~$43.00/hr. That's your real cost per hour of work — 23% above the base rate.
For a casual
Take a casual at $44/hr base (already includes the 25% loading):
- Base: $44.00
- + Superannuation (11.5%): $5.06
- + WorkCover (~2%): $0.88
Loaded rate: ~$50.00/hr. Casuals appear more expensive per hour but you don't carry leave or sick day costs separately.
The hidden killer: utilisation
Your loaded rate only counts the cost of an hour of work. It doesn't account for the fact that not every paid hour is a billable hour. A field worker who's paid for 38 hours a week but actually bills 30 hours of customer work has a 79% utilisation rate. Their effective billable cost is loaded rate ÷ utilisation.
$43/hr loaded ÷ 0.79 utilisation = $54/hr in customer-facing terms. Quote on $43 and you'll bleed margin on every quote.
Why this matters
Most off-the-shelf quoting tools accept a flat “hourly rate” without modelling these layers. The result is quotes that look profitable on paper but lose money in practice. The fix is either keeping a careful spreadsheet — and updating it whenever rates change — or using a tool that models loaded labour costs natively.
Bizzie tracks each employee's base rate plus loaded components and applies the correct loaded cost across your services and jobs automatically. See features for more.