Job Offer Comparison Calculator

A fair comparison goes beyond headline salary. Start with after-tax net income, since two offers with the same gross can leave very different amounts in your pocket depending on tax credits and pension relief. Add the expected value of any bonus, weighted by how confident you are it will actually pay out. Add the annual employer pension contribution, which is real compensation even though you cannot spend it today. Then subtract commute costs and value your commute time at your effective hourly rate. The resulting 'true effective value' is the most complete financial comparison you can make.

Your true hourly rate divides your after-tax net salary by the total hours you commit to the role: work hours plus commute hours. A job paying €90,000 gross with a 90-minute round-trip commute five days a week adds 345 hours of committed time per year. That lowers your effective hourly rate significantly compared to a fully remote role on €85,000 gross. In many cases the remote role is worth more per hour of your time, even if the headline salary is lower.

In both Ireland and the UK, employee pension contributions come from pre-tax income, reducing the gross amount subject to income tax, USC (Ireland), and National Insurance (UK). A 5% employee contribution on an €80,000 salary reduces your taxable income to €76,000. The tax saved depends on your marginal rate. This means the real cost of a 5% contribution is less than 5% of take-home pay, making pension a highly tax-efficient form of compensation.

The employer pension contribution is additional compensation that sits outside your salary. If Offer A pays €80,000 with 8% employer pension and Offer B pays €82,000 with 3% employer pension, Offer A has an additional €3,400 of employer pension value versus Offer B's €1,640. Including this, Offer A's total package is actually higher. Always compare total reward, not just take-home salary.

Hybrid work introduces two costs that fully remote roles avoid: the direct cash cost of commuting (transport fares, fuel, parking) and the opportunity cost of your commute time. For a typical three-day-per-week office role with a 45-minute round-trip, that is roughly 310 hours per year and potentially €2,000 to €4,000 in transport costs. A hybrid role that looks £2,000 better on salary can easily be worth less overall than a remote role once commute is accounted for.

The calculator uses a confidence-weighted expected bonus: target bonus percentage multiplied by your stated probability that it will pay out. This is the expected value, which is the statistically fair way to compare bonuses of different structures. A 20% target bonus with 50% confidence is worth the same expected value as a 10% target bonus with 100% confidence. You should set confidence based on the company's track record, the clarity of targets, and whether the bonus is discretionary or formulaic.

Yes. The calculator converts UK values to EUR at an indicative rate of £1 = €1.19 for comparison purposes. This allows you to see the total package in a common currency. Bear in mind that purchasing power also differs between cities: a £70,000 salary in London and a €80,000 salary in Dublin involve very different housing costs, transport costs, and general cost of living. The financial comparison is a starting point, not the complete picture.

Net after commute adds your net salary, expected bonus net of tax, and employer pension value, then subtracts the direct cash cost of your annual commute (transport fares and parking). It does not include the time value of your commute — that is captured separately in 'true effective value'. Net after commute is the most straightforward financial metric: the pounds or euros you have available to spend after your daily travel costs are paid.

Net salary depends on how much of your income is subject to standard versus higher tax rates, which USC band your income falls into (Ireland), whether your National Insurance hits the upper threshold (UK), and critically how much your employee pension contribution reduces your taxable income. Two offers at the same salary with 3% versus 10% employee pension can have a net salary difference of €1,500 or more after pension tax relief.

The calculator focuses on salary, bonus, pension, and commute. Other tax-efficient benefits — cycle-to-work schemes, childcare vouchers, health insurance, share options — are not currently modelled. If one offer includes significant tax-free benefits (for example, employer-paid health insurance valued at €1,500 or private medical cover at £1,200), add that value to your mental model of total package value when comparing.

The calculator values commute time at your effective hourly rate: your net annual salary divided by 1,840 work hours per year. This is a conservative estimate of your time's worth. You could also use your true hourly rate, which is lower because it already bakes in commute time. Either way, commute time has a real financial cost: hours you spend commuting are hours you are not spending on side income, professional development, family, or rest.

Equity is not included in this calculator because valuing unvested options or RSUs requires assumptions about company valuation, vesting schedules, and liquidity events that are highly speculative. For early-stage companies, equity can range from worthless to transformative. For public companies with RSUs, use the current share price and apply your marginal tax rate to approximate net value. Add this figure manually to your total package estimate when making your decision.