A billable hour costs an IT company more than the employee's hourly wage. You also pay employer contributions, pension, an office and hours you cannot bill. According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), staff costs in IT services averaged about € 101,000 per full-time job in 2024.
How much an hour really costs you then depends mainly on your utilisation: the share of available hours you bill to clients. There is no official standard for this. You can, however, use your own figures to work out where your lower limit lies.
In short
- CBS average for IT services in 2024: about € 101,000 of staff costs per FTE employee, about 1.4 times the gross wage. It is an average across large and small companies, not a standard.
- Divide your costs per employee by the hours you actually bill, not by all paid hours. With low utilisation, the cost per hour rises quickly.
- Costs per FTE rose faster between 2021 and 2024 than the CBS price index for IT services. If you do not keep your rates up to date, you lose margin.
In this article
- What does an employee cost an IT company per year?
- What does an IT professional earn per hour, and why is that not your cost?
- What is utilisation, and why does it determine what an hour costs?
- What costs come on top of staff?
- Is sales per employee a good measure for your rate?
- Are IT rates rising as fast as costs?
- Is it better to charge by the hour or a fixed price?
- What does this mean for freelancers and owner-directors with their own company?
What does an employee cost an IT company per year?
About € 101,000 per full-time job on average in 2024. This is our own calculation from the CBS figures for IT services (SBI 2008, code 62): € 23,938 million of staff costs divided by 237,000 FTE employees (CBS, business sector, labour and financial data by branch). An FTE is a full-time job, so two half-time jobs count as one FTE together.
At CBS, staff costs are more than wages. They include gross wages, employer social contributions, pension contributions and other staff costs. Gross wages were about € 72,100 per FTE in 2024. Total staff costs were therefore about 1.4 times the gross wage.
The amount is rising fast. In 2019 it was still about € 81,400 per FTE, in 2024 about € 101,000. This is an average across all IT service companies together, from sole trader to large company. CBS does not give these figures separately for small companies, so your own amount may be higher or lower.
What does an IT professional earn per hour, and why is that not your cost?
The median gross hourly wage of employees in IT occupations was € 34.90 in 2025. For software and application developers it was € 34.60 and for systems analysts and IT advisers € 39.40 (CBS, employees, hourly wage and occupation). The median is the middle wage: half earn more, half earn less.
That hourly wage is not a cost price. CBS calculates it without holiday pay, year-end bonus, bonus and overtime. Employer costs come on top, and you also pay wages for holidays, public holidays, sickness, training and internal hours. A cost per hour therefore starts with the costs per year, not with the hourly wage.
What is utilisation, and why does it determine what an hour costs?
Utilisation, also called billability, is the share of available hours that you bill to a client. The lower that share, the fewer hours have to carry the costs of the whole year. As a result, the cost per billed hour rises.
There is no official standard. CBS does not measure billable hours, and academic research does not offer a usable percentage for Dutch IT companies either. Percentages you see online usually come from the customer data of software vendors. So calculate with your own time records.
Worked example, not industry figures
A developer costs € 101,000 a year, equal to the CBS average. Suppose 1,720 hours remain after holidays and public holidays, which is 40 hours a week for 43 weeks. If you bill 50% of that, that is 860 hours and each billable hour costs € 117 in staff costs alone. At 60% it is 1,032 hours and € 98, at 70% 1,204 hours and € 84, at 80% 1,376 hours and € 73. The hours and percentages are assumptions for this example.
In this example, the difference between 50% and 80% is € 44 an hour. That is more than the median hourly wage of a developer. A few per cent more billable hours often does more for profit than a slightly higher rate, because the costs for the year are already fixed.
What costs come on top of staff?
At an average IT company, about as much as the staff themselves cost, if you include purchases. In 2024, 33.6% of the operating income of IT services went on staff, 33.4% on purchases, 20.0% on other operating costs and 4.2% on depreciation. 8.8% was left as operating result, which is income minus all operating costs.
Purchases include hired staff, outsourced work and resold licences and equipment. These costs belong to an assignment, not to an hour of your own people. Other operating costs include premises, cars, sales and software for your own use. Every billable hour does have to help pay for those.
Convert your own other costs into an amount per FTE. If they are € 30,000 per employee in the example, a billable hour at 60% utilisation costs € 127 instead of € 98. Profit only starts above that. That amount of € 30,000 is also an assumption for the example.
Is sales per employee a good measure for your rate?
No, not on its own. Net sales of IT services were about € 193,000 per job of a working person in 2024. That looks like a lot, but a third of operating income went on purchases. A company that resells many licences or hires freelancers therefore has high sales per own employee without its hours earning more.
Also note who is counted. In 2024, CBS counted 344,200 jobs of working persons in IT services, of which 263,300 were jobs of employees. The rest include owners and self-employed people. Their pay is not in staff costs but in the result. So compare your own company on value added per hour: sales minus purchases, divided by the hours of your own people.
Are IT rates rising as fast as costs?
Not up to and including 2024. Staff costs per FTE in IT services rose by about 16% from 2021 to 2024. The CBS price index for computer programming and consultancy rose by 10.4% in the same years (CBS, service prices, commercial services). In the second quarter of 2026, the index stood at 115.8, with 2021 as 100.
The two series do not measure exactly the same thing. The price index follows the price of a service, the costs per FTE apply to a group of companies. Still, the lesson is useful: if you leave your rate unchanged for a few years while wages rise, the margin per hour shrinks. How to decide whether a price increase is sensible is explained in how do you know if a price increase is sensible.
Is it better to charge by the hour or a fixed price?
A fixed price appeals to clients, but then you carry the risk of extra hours. Researchers looked at Dutch auctions in which law firms bid on standard cases, with an hourly rate, a fixed fee or a mix. According to their results, clients strongly prefer a fixed fee (Felső, Onderstal & Seldeslachts, 2022).
That research was about lawyers, not IT, and about standard cases. For an IT company the lesson is still useful. A fixed price is only safe if you know how many hours a type of assignment takes, and what an hour costs you. So after every assignment, compare the hours recorded with the quote.
What does this mean for freelancers and owner-directors with their own company?
Your own hours are not all billable either. For the hours criterion in income tax, you count all hours spent on your business, including writing quotes and bookkeeping, and you need at least 1,225 a year (Belastingdienst, hours criterion conditions). Your rate must therefore also pay for those unbilled hours. More on the hours criterion is in hours criterion and self-employed deduction 2026.
If you work as an owner-director in your own company, your salary must be at least € 58,000 in 2026, or more if a comparable job or your best-paid employee earns more (Belastingdienst, wages and substantial interest). If you bill 1,000 hours a year yourself, that salary alone already costs € 58 per billable hour, before employer costs and other costs. Why many owner-directors choose exactly this minimum is explained in why so many owner-directors choose the lowest salary.
So include your own hours in the calculation, at the same amount per hour as an employee. Then you can see whether the company also makes a profit without your unpaid hours. That matters if you want to hire someone to take over part of your work, or if you ever want to sell the company.
Sources
- CBS, Bedrijfsleven, arbeids- en financiële gegevens, per branche, SBI 2008 (Business sector, labour and financial data by branch, table 81156ned), branch 62 IT services, 2015 to 2024, updated 24 April 2026, accessed 31 October 2026. cbs.nl
- CBS, Werknemers, uurloon en beroep (Employees, hourly wage and occupation, table 86355NED), 2025, updated 30 October 2026, accessed 31 October 2026. cbs.nl
- CBS, Dienstenprijzen, commerciële dienstverlening en transport (Service prices, commercial services and transport, index 2021=100, table 85817NED), CPA 62 Computer programming, consultancy, updated 4 September 2026, accessed 31 October 2026. cbs.nl
- Felső, F., Onderstal, S. & Seldeslachts, J. (2022). The pricing structure of legal services: Do lawyers offer what clients want? Review of Industrial Organization, 61(2), 123-148. doi.org
- Belastingdienst, Voorwaarden urencriterium (Hours criterion conditions), accessed 31 October 2026. belastingdienst.nl
- Belastingdienst, Loon en aanmerkelijk belang (Wages and substantial interest, customary salary 2026), accessed 31 October 2026. belastingdienst.nl