Agency staff against hiring permanent staff
What does agency cover cost us against employing the same hours ourselves, and how many posts would it pay for?
Upload agency invoices and a payroll. Ask Orrery totals agency hours and spend by role and month, works out the full cost of the same hours as employees, and shows how many posts the difference would fund.
When people use it: When agency spend rises, and when deciding whether to recruit.
How it works, step by step
Upload invoices and payroll
A CSV or spreadsheet export from your agency is best; PDFs work too.
The cost gap
Agency nurses commonly cost more than twice a staff nurse's hourly rate.
Can you recruit?
Competing employers near you and the council's rates show how hard filling the posts will be.
What you upload
- Agency invoices or a statement (dates, roles, hours, rates)
- A payroll with your own rates
Files are stored privately for your account, never shared with anyone and never used to train AI. You can delete them at any time. Spreadsheets, CSV, PDF and Word files all work, in your own layout.
Try it with sample files
Made up files for a made up provider, Example Care Group, so you can see what Ask Orrery does with them.
Questions you can ask
- “From my Example House agency invoices April to September, how many hours and how much did we spend by role and month?”
- “What would the same hours have cost as employees at our own rates, including employer National Insurance, pension and holiday? How many full time posts is that?”
- “Chart agency spend by month and role.”
Ask the data in plain English
A real question and answer from Ask Orrery, the assistant inside the platform, using the Example Care Group sample files above (October 2026). It works from your files and Orrery's data, and shows its sources.
Agency spend from April to September 2026 was £147,917.60 excluding VAT, for 3,356 hours. Registered nurses account for most of it: £112,074.00 for 2,052 hours, against £35,843.60 for 1,304 care assistant hours.
I grouped these by shift date, so each shift counts in the month it was worked. Source: your document "Example House agency invoices April to September 2026.csv".
| Month | Care assistant hours | Care assistant £ | Registered nurse hours | Registered nurse £ | Total hours | Total £ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr | 204 | 5,704.80 | 408 | 22,284.00 | 612 | 27,988.80 |
| May | 236 | 6,508.40 | 288 | 15,822.00 | 524 | 22,330.40 |
| Jun | 200 | 5,478.80 | 324 | 17,652.00 | 524 | 23,130.80 |
| Jul | 252 | 6,894.00 | 396 | 21,654.00 | 648 | 28,548.00 |
| Aug | 196 | 5,393.20 | 312 | 17,124.00 | 508 | 22,517.20 |
| Sep | 216 | 5,864.40 | 324 | 17,538.00 | 540 | 23,402.40 |
| Total | 1,304 | 35,843.60 | 2,052 | 112,074.00 | 3,356 | 147,917.60 |
- Cost per hour: Nurses average about £54.62 an hour and care assistants about £27.49 an hour. Nurses are about 61% of the hours but about 76% of the spend.
- Peaks: April and July were the highest months. Both had heavy nurse cover.
- Invoice dates: Some invoices dated in October cover September shifts. If you want spend by invoice date instead, the monthly figures change. For example, June would be £28,620.00 rather than £23,130.80.
The "agency-vs-permanent" guide compares this spend with the cost of hiring staff directly. Do you want me to run it?
Ask, chart and report, in plain English
Ask Orrery answers from Orrery's data and your own files, draws charts on request and builds reports you can save as PDF. These are real examples made with the sample files.
- Compare like with like: an employee's hour includes holiday, National Insurance, pension, training and sickness cover.
- Agency spend that is steady month after month is really an unfilled post.
Answer this with your own files
Subscribers get every guide, chart and projection for all 153 councils, Ask Orrery with private uploads of their own files, and every council report.
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