NYCPHP Meetup

[Greg Rundlett]

On 6/17/07, Ben Sgro (ProjectSkyline) <ben at projectskyline.com> wrote:
> Hello Greg,
>
> Thanks: The data on salary.com is great ... I can see what the medium
> salary is for said jobs.
>
> Even better would be a site that lists the per/hour rate of said jobs.
>
> Thanks again.

Annual Salary/2,000 = hourly rate

There are 52 weeks /yr
minus 2 weeks /yr vacation
= 50 weeks @ 40 hrs / week
= 2,000 hours / yr available for work

This is a rough estimation of the hourly *Cost*
E.g. for worker "John" 100K annual rate (~$50/hr)

Actual project estimation and costing can include a whole slew of
adjustments, but at least that gets you a quick idea.

I know you didn't ask about rate calculation, but I just wanted to add
a quick note about that because people new to the idea of consulting
can easily get trapped by bad assumptions.
As an example to how this is just a quick formula for cost comparison
and NOT a formula for calculating 'rates':  In consulting, I would
never charge $50/hr to earn $100K / year.  The available hours for
working aren't even close to 2,000 hours after you subtract a
reasonable number for holidays and sick days.  Subtract the amount of
time you expect to be learning, prospecting, marketing, administering
your business etc.  When you finally arrive at the amount of time you
will actually spend working billiable hours for a customer (in
whatever capacity: sales, dev, support), then you can figure out what
the hourly charge should be.  Often it is 3x what the nominal rate
would be ($150/hr to earn 100K).  Also billing is sometimes done on a
defined deliverable basis instead so that you can forget the clock.
E.g. bill $200 for an application version upgrade (with an unstated
but easily adhered to limit of 1hr because you know that the site
upgrade process is routine and repeatable.)

Anyway, i digress.