Free calculator
Return-to-work childcare calculator
See the money side of going back to work after having a baby: your part-time take-home pay set against the childcare it would need, after funded hours and Tax-Free Childcare. It shows only the money — the choice involves far more — and shows a negative figure honestly. An illustration, not a verdict.
Tell us your pay, the days you'd work and your childcare, and we'll picture what's left each month once childcare is covered. It's an illustration — it clears when you leave the page.
This calculator, the result and the breakdown are free for everyone, no account needed.
Save this and pick up where you left off
Create a free Blooom account to save this result and reuse the figures you enter across your calculators — so you type less and see the numbers that fit you.
Blooom+ adds the ongoing layer: it keeps an eye on this figure and tells you when it changes, and gives you the deeper AI analysis across your whole money picture. See what Blooom+ does
How it works
- 1Enter your full-time pay a year and the days a week you'd work — the calculator scales the pay to those days.
- 2Add your child's age band and region, the childcare hours you'd use and your monthly childcare cost.
- 3Answer the eligibility questions on earnings and income band, so funded hours and Tax-Free Childcare are applied honestly rather than assumed.
- 4The calculator estimates your part-time take-home and the net childcare cost, and shows the monthly difference — which can be negative, shown plainly.
Worked example
£30,000 full-time pay, working three days a week, with a 3–4-year-old in England using 30 hours of childcare, on the eligibility answers you provide. The calculator scales the pay to three days, applies funded hours and Tax-Free Childcare, and shows the take-home, the net childcare cost and the monthly difference.
It shows only the money side — going back to work, or not, involves far more than a monthly figure, and there's no right answer here. Funded hours and the £100k income cap are facts; the rest is your own numbers. GOV.UK is the place to check support.
Frequently asked questions
Is it worth going back to work after having a baby?
That's a personal decision with far more to it than money. This calculator only shows the money side — part-time take-home against childcare cost — so you can see that part clearly. It doesn't weigh the rest, and it isn't a verdict.
How much of my salary goes on childcare?
It depends on your hours, your child's age and the funded support you qualify for. Enter your figures and the calculator shows your net childcare cost against your part-time take-home, so you can see the balance for your situation.
What childcare support can I get?
England offers funded hours for eligible working parents and Tax-Free Childcare tops up costs UK-wide, subject to earnings and a £100,000 income cap. The calculator applies these on your answers; GOV.UK's Childcare Choices confirms them.
What if childcare costs more than I'd earn?
The calculator shows a negative monthly figure honestly rather than hiding it — for some families, part-time work barely covers childcare in the early years, and costs usually fall as children get older. It's a money picture, not a judgement.