What are the costs of a programmer?

Cost price calculation programmer
What Monthly Yearly
Gross income 2.295,00 27.540,00
Reservation for free days / holiday 2.203,20
Additional costs for employer related to income 4.461,48
Pension plan 140,00 1.680,00
Company car, lease 500,00 6.000,00
Company car, additional costs 140,00 1.680,00
Work space, furniture 340,00
Work space, office rent 275,00 3.300,00
Equipment, hardware 680,00
Equipment, software 910,00
Training 2.270,00
Other indirecte costs 4.500,00
Total costs for employee 63.004,68


Overview spending hours
Number of days a year 260,00
Free days or holiday -25,00
Study -30,00
Misc. internal -10,00
Project meetings etc. -50,00
Working days available for customers 145,00
Working hours available for customers * 1.160,00
Costs for employer per billable hour 53,94
Profit margin 10% for employer 5,39
Minimal hourly fee for customer 59,34
'Market price' for external programmers 70 tot 125

* Recruitment agencies often calculate 135 uur / month = 1620 hours / year.
Activities like preparing work and project meetings are then billable hours, which gives about the same end result of this calculation.

All mentioned amounts are:

This overview is written in 2002 by Nico den Boer.
Would you like to calculate yourself? Then download the spreadsheet: .ods or .xls format.

At the end of february 2001 the Dutch research bureau Interview executed a research among ICT folks, 'Survey Dutch Ict market' (DIM), which was published by VNU business publications. In this report they mention the following numbers:
  • The avarage IT professional in Holland earns yearly € 40.205,--
  • IT professionals spend an avarage of 6,1 percent of their time to study
  • 46,6% of the IT professionals works for a ICT company, the other part works for 'end users'
  • 15,4% of the IT professionals works for a company with less than 20 employees