KuadriWhat night shift pay is
Night shift pay (or night differential) is extra pay for the hours you work at night. In the UK and US it is not required by law: it comes from your contract, union agreement or company policy. Only the hours inside the agreed night window earn it, not the whole shift.
Which hours count as night work
The night window is whatever your agreement says. A common window is 10pm to 6am. In the UK, the Working Time Regulations use 11pm to 6am as the default night period, but that only drives working-time limits and health checks, not pay.
Night shift, 10pm → 6am. The whole shift sits inside the window: all 8 hours earn the differential, even the 6 that belong to the next day.
Late shift, 6pm → 2am. Only the part inside the window earns extra; the rest is paid at the base rate.
The count goes by hours inside the window, not by whole shifts. Kuadri does it minute by minute.
How much it pays
There is no legal figure: the differential is set in your contract or union agreement. Typical ranges run from about 5% to 20% of the base rate, or a flat amount per hour. Healthcare and manufacturing tend to sit at the higher end.
How to work it out, step by step
- 1. Count how many hours of the shift fall inside your night window.
- 2. Multiply those hours by the extra per hour your agreement sets.
- 3. Add that to the normal pay for the rest of the shift.
A worked example
Shift from 10pm to 6am (8 hours), all inside the window. Base rate £10/hour with a 15% differential, i.e. £1.50 extra per night hour:
How Kuadri works it out
Doing this by hand every month, with rotating shifts and nights that cross midnight, is a chore. Kuadri does it for you: set your night window and differential once and it applies them minute by minute, along with weekend and holiday premiums and overtime. You see the month's gross before payday, and can export to PDF or CSV to check your payslip.
The app is free, works without an account and offline, and has no ads.