OnCall Pay Rate

[magnum555]

Just after some advice for a friend he works in 2nd line support IT and has been asked by his employer if he wants to work oncall 7 days a week, so during the week it would be from 5pm to 8am and from 5pm on Friday to 9am Monday morning.

What percentage of his salary should he expect to be paid?

[Du1point8]

On call as in he works 9-5 and then supports whatever out of hours?

If so as first line support for Bank (also developed the software) I would get flat £50 a day for being oncall and £50 a call, weekends were time and a half... so £75 for the day regardless if something happened... then £75 a call.

easy money if the system is coded well, but you can't stray far from laptop and certainly can't enjoy a night out just in case you got called.

(that was 2007-2008)

[SlidingSideways]

Ideally, he wants a flat fee for actually being on call each day, and then overtime for any time actually spent dealing with issues that arise.

I've known contracts where there was a minimum of one hour paid each time the guy was called, and O/T was claimed in 1 hour increments (so even if the job only took 70mins, you got 2 hours O/T paid)

He also needs to make sure that he's not on call all the time, so at least one other person needs to be on the on call rota to share the work. It's no fun being clean, sober and close to your laptop 24/7/365

[va1o]

Our place is a flat rate for everyone regardless of salary. Its in the region of £300 a week for standby plus about £50 per call if the phone rings.

[MikeGoodwin]

£180 a week, extra for Bank Hols. For me - Im a 'secondary' on call and by that I mean i receive alerts for two data centre sites in the UK via text alerts (Get about 3 of these a week out of hours). The remaining 10 data center alerts go to a primary on call who gets paid more as hes considered senior. Ironic because he only knows solaris stuff, so always rings me for everything globally.

[Ynox]

Used to get £400/week for being on call, plus then overtime for call outs.

Edit - this was 2nd line, but as a developer of the application we were supporting. Basically if I got called, the st had hit the fan in a major way.

[n3il123]

When I did it it was £200 per month then £50 for the first hour and then £25 per hour afterwards. The £50 wasn't however restricted so if you got called twice in a night that was £100. This was just for remote support so no driving into the office or anything like that.

[KingNothing]

I do out of hours electrical cover for the factory I work at, which works out at about 30% of my salary per hour on call. Then if I get called in; get at least 2 hours traveling time at hourly rate, and two hours working time, at 1.5 hourly rate; regardless if the job only takes 5 minutes. Then obviously get my 1.5 rate if the job takes longer than 2 hours.

[mph1977]

as has been said

% figure for being on call - the exact percentage will depend on the likelyhood of being called, and the extent of restrictions placed upon you ( e.g if you've got to be able physically attend a worksite within a fixed time frame the %age should be higher than if you might be called and have to log into a system remotely and reset something) plus an hourly rate ( with a minimum period) for each actual call. Plus of course compensatory rest to ensure compliance with the none-opt-outable parts of the EWTD ( e.g. daily + weekly rest periods)

yes this sounds expensive but that's the significant point if it reaches the point where the number and duration of calls being taken is a big cost then the job needs to be looked at and extended day working / full shift working - with the associated increase in head count needs to be considered.

[davebem]

Cant beleive some of the figures here! I only get £20 per weekday and £40 at weekends for being on call. I think its £38 if I get a call, and then its double overtime. Im oncall for the Service Management tool and integrations (serviceNow).

[Jasandjules]

davebem said:

Cant beleive some of the figures here! I only get £20 per weekday and £40 at weekends for being on call. I think its £38 if I get a call, and then its double overtime. Im oncall for the Service Management tool and integrations (serviceNow).

Well if it makes you feel better in my old career I was "on call" at any time I was not in the office, and I got paid f**k all for it.....

[16v stretch]

My on-call is £120 per week (Regardless of if Primary or Secondary person) then mileage for a call-out, double hourly while onsite. That's as Level 2 Support.

[clockworks]

In my last job (computer field service engineer) I got 3 pounds an hour Mon to Sat, 6 pounds an hour Sunday.
If I actually had to go out, I got the standard overtime rate of 1.5 or double time.
I was on a rota with 2 other guys, and I one did it for 7 straight weeks when the other 2 guys were off sick or on holiday.

Most weeks I would end up working until 10pm a couple of days a week, working about 10 hours Saturday, and one call out on a Sunday. Only got called out at night every 6 months or so.

I think the telephone support guys got a flat 50 pounds per call, with no hourly allowance.

[JB!]

On track we were £75 a week for being on call, and minimum 4hrs pay for each call out at time and a half.

[MattHall91]

I don't understand anything about IT, support or 1st and 2nd lines.

However with these figures floating around, I think I'm in the wrong career!