As of 13 August 2026, AI can create a hiring budget for your business.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your current accounts or cash plan and record the budget period, available cash, current headcount and any spending limit for new hires.
   2. Gather the proposed job titles, number of people, salaries, contract or working pattern, intended start date and whether each role is replacing someone or adding headcount.
   3. Ask your payroll provider or accountant for the employer cost figures you intend to use, including employer National Insurance, workplace pension contributions, holiday pay and benefits, and record recruitment, equipment and training costs separately.
   4. Paste the gathered figures into the prompt and ask the chatbot to produce the monthly table, annual totals and base, cautious and expansion scenarios.
   5. Paste the returned table into Excel or Google Sheets and compare every input with your payroll records, job offers, supplier quotes and cash plan; correct any formula or missing-cost flag before using the totals.
   6. Send the assumptions and final figures to your accountant or payroll provider for a sense check if the budget affects affordability, payroll setup or a major hiring decision.

   Prompt

   Create a UK hiring budget for my business from the information below. Build a clear table showing each role, headcount, start date, monthly and annual gross pay, employer costs, recruitment costs, benefits, equipment, training and total cost. Show monthly cash requirements from [START MONTH] to [END MONTH], separating one-off costs from recurring costs. Include three scenarios: base, cautious and expansion, and state exactly which assumptions change in each scenario.
   
   Use only figures I provide. Do not invent salary rates, tax rates, National Insurance rates, pension rates, benefits, recruitment fees or other costs. If a required figure is missing, leave it blank, identify it as an input needed, and show the formula that will use it. Treat PAYE, employer National Insurance, workplace pension contributions, holiday pay, benefits and recruitment fees as separate lines where relevant. Do not give tax or payroll advice. Flag any assumption that I need to confirm with my accountant or payroll provider.
   
   Check that the monthly totals reconcile to the annual totals, show the formulas in plain English, and list every input and assumption at the end. Also show the effect on total annual cost and monthly cash requirement if each planned start date moves by one month.
   
   Business details:
   [BUSINESS NAME OR DESCRIPTION]
   [CURRENT HEADCOUNT]
   [AVAILABLE MONTHLY CASH OR BUDGET LIMIT]
   [PLANNED ROLES, HEADCOUNT, SALARIES AND START DATES]
   [WORKING PATTERNS AND CONTRACT TYPES]
   [EMPLOYER COST RATES OR AMOUNTS]
   [BENEFITS, EQUIPMENT, TRAINING AND RECRUITMENT COSTS]
   [BUDGET PERIOD]
   [OTHER CONSTRAINTS OR ASSUMPTIONS]
   
   Return the result in a format I can paste into Excel or Google Sheets, followed by a short list of decisions I must make before relying on the budget.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.