01 Management time
Formula: (Hiring manager hours per week x hourly rate + HR hours per week x hourly rate) x weeks overrun.
Source: Internal benchmark. Hourly rate uses annual salary / 46 working weeks / 5 days / 8 hours.
02 Team capacity cost
Formula: (Average salary / 46 / 5) x extra days per week x weeks open x people covering.
Source: Internal benchmark based on typical gap-cover patterns in Life Sciences IT teams.
03 Contractor cover
Formula: Day rate x 5 days x weeks engaged. Inside IR35 applies a 15% uplift for employer costs.
Source: UK contractor market benchmark for mid/senior Life Sciences IT roles.
04 Consultancy cover
Formula: Day rate x 5 days x weeks engaged. Consultancy team cost also multiplies by number of consultants.
Source: Life Sciences IT consultancy market benchmark. Applied where consultancy spend is filling a permanent capability gap.
05 Service Provider cover
Formula: Monthly retainer x months, per-seat cost x seats x months, or day rate x days per week x weeks.
Source: Life Sciences IT service provider market benchmark. IR35 is not applied to a genuine managed service arrangement.
06 Onboarding cost
Formula: (Annual salary x 1.25) / 12 x months to productivity x productivity gap.
Source: Industry research. Mid/senior roles in regulated environments often take 3 to 12 months to reach full productivity. Onboarding is included in total exposure, but is only treated as avoidable cost when a previous hire has failed.
07 Failed hire / rework
Formula: Failed hire uses 150% of fully loaded salary, prorated by weeks in role. Settlement and previous agency spend are user-entered costs added directly.
Source: Conservative industry benchmark for mid/senior replacement cost. Settlement and previous agency spend are user-defined sunk costs from a process that did not solve the hiring problem. When a previous hire failed, onboarding is treated as rework because that ramp-up investment did not solve the hiring problem.
08 Delivery impact
Formula: User-entered commercial, compliance or delivery cost caused by delay.
Source: User-defined. This should be tied to a programme, validation milestone, audit window or launch deadline.
09 Well-run permanent search
Formula: 25% of annual base salary + 15 hours hiring manager time + 5 hours HR time.
Source: nufuture fee model and internal time benchmark, used to compare the current exposure with the cost of running the search properly.
