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Project staffing plan template: roles by week, not HR headcount
Free Excel template for agencies and consultancies, Google Sheets compatible. Plan who a project needs, week by week. No sign-up.
Free. No sign-up. Example data included. Opens in Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice.
A project staffing plan lists the roles a project needs, the hours each role needs every week, and who fills each seat.
It isn't an HR headcount plan. It's built from the scope or SOW for one piece of work, before people are booked.
Weekly total = hours across every seat that week
People needed = weekly total ÷ a full-time week (37.5 hours)
Fee = days per role × day rate, where days = hours ÷ hours per day
In the example file:
- 2 of 7seats still open in the example project
- 530 of 1,615hours not yet filled by a named person
- Week 3when the first open seat is needed
Preview: the example in the file
Example data: every name, project and number is invented.
| Seat | Fill | Person | Discovery (W1–2), h/week | Design (W3–6), h/week | Build (W7–14), h/week | Launch (W15–16), h/week | Total hours | Weeks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project manager | Named | Isla | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 240 | 1–16 |
| Strategist | Named | Kit | 20 | 5 | – | – | 60 | 1–6 |
| UX designer | Named | Asha | 20 | 37.50 | 10 | – | 270 | 1–14 |
| UI designer | Open | – | – | 37.50 | 5 | – | 190 | 3–10 |
| Senior developer | Named | Eli | – | 10 | 37.50 | 37.50 | 415 | 3–16 |
| Developer | Open | – | – | – | 37.50 | 20 | 340 | 7–16 |
| QA tester | Freelance | – | – | – | 7.50 | 20 | 100 | 12–16 |
| Weekly total | 55 | 105 | 112.50 | 92.50 | 1,615 | 1–16 | ||
| Open-seat hours | 0 | 37.50 | 42.50 | 20 | 530 | from W3 |
| W1 | W2 | W3 | W4 | W5 | W6 | W7 | W8 | W9 | W10 | W11 | W12 | W13 | W14 | W15 | W16 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly total (h) | 55 | 55 | 105 | 105 | 105 | 105 | 110 | 110 | 110 | 110 | 100 | 120 | 120 | 120 | 92.50 | 92.50 |
| People needed | 1.47 | 1.47 | 2.80 | 2.80 | 2.80 | 2.80 | 2.93 | 2.93 | 2.93 | 2.93 | 2.67 | 3.20 | 3.20 | 3.20 | 2.47 | 2.47 |
| Role | Day rate | Days | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project manager | £600.00 | 32.00 | £19,200.00 |
| Strategist | £900.00 | 8.00 | £7,200.00 |
| UX designer | £650.00 | 36.00 | £23,400.00 |
| UI designer | £600.00 | 25.33 | £15,200.00 |
| Senior developer | £750.00 | 55.33 | £41,500.00 |
| Developer | £550.00 | 45.33 | £24,933.33 |
| QA tester | £450.00 | 13.33 | £6,000.00 |
| Total | £137,433.33 |
Project staffing plan vs HR staffing plan
| Project staffing plan (this template) | HR staffing plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Covers | One project or SOW | The whole organisation |
| Grain | Roles × weeks, in hours | Headcount by team, often by quarter |
| Built from | The scope, phases and estimates | Growth plans, attrition and budget |
| Owner | Delivery lead, PM or resource manager | HR, finance and leadership |
What's in the template
- ProjectName, client, start week, number of weeks (up to 26), standard hours, hours per day, currency, budget and up to eight phases.
- Staffing planOne row per seat: role, seniority, skills needed, fill status (Named, Open or Freelance), person and hours for every week, labelled by phase.
- SummaryTotal hours, the peak week, people needed at peak, open-seat hours and the first week an open seat is needed, plus per-role figures.
- BudgetHours turned into days and a fee with a day rate per role, checked against the budget.
How to build a project staffing plan from a SOW
- Split the scope into phases and add them on the Project tab, in week order.
- List the roles each phase needs, one row per seat, with the skills it calls for.
- Estimate hours per role per week.
- Mark each seat Named, Open or Freelance, and name the person where you can.
- Check the peak and the open seats on the Summary tab.
- Price it against the budget on the Budget tab.
Reading the summary
- People needed at peak: the busiest week's hours ÷ a full-time week. This is the full-time equivalent (FTE) the project needs at its height. Weeks 12–14 need 120 hours: 3.2 people.
- Open-seat hours: hours nobody is named for yet. 530 in the example.
- First open week: your deadline to fill a seat. Week 3 in the example, before design starts.
What to do with it:
- Start recruiting or a freelancer search well before the first open week.
- Phase the work to flatten the peak if the busiest weeks need more people than you have.
- Swap a senior seat for a mid-level one plus review time when the budget is tight.
Worked example. The fee is £137,433.33, which is £12,566.67 under the £150,000 budget. Need day rates first? Use the agency rate card template.
Staff for fit, not just free time
The skills column is there because the cheapest free person often isn't the right one. A designer with time next month who has never worked on accessibility is a risk on a project that needs it.
Write the skills each seat needs before you name anyone, and check the match when you fill it. Consultancies staffing by skill can read more on consulting resource management software.
From staffing plan to allocation
A staffing plan is the demand side of one project. Once seats are filled, the named people's hours go into the team-wide plan alongside every other project.
Use the resource allocation template for who works on what each week, and the capacity planning template to check each role has the hours across all work.
Join Kavaro
When a spreadsheet stops working
A staffing plan per project can't see that the same people are pencilled into three other plans, and nobody knows which open seats across all projects are urgent.
Kavaro is resource management software for agencies and consultancies. Attach or paste a SOW in Kavaro's chat (it reads the text of Word and PDF files) and it drafts the project with its phases, team and open-role seats as tentative bookings. Nothing is saved until you confirm. Open roles then show on the Schedule next to everyone's real bookings. For people with finance access, the weekly hiring card looks 4, 8 and 12 weeks ahead at open roles and suggests costed internal cover: people in the same role, a short start slip, partial cover or a contract extension.
Turn your next SOW into a staffing plan: try Kavaro freeQuestions people ask
What should a project staffing plan include?
The phases of the project, the roles each phase needs, the hours per role per week, the skills each seat needs, who fills each seat (or that it's open), and a check against the budget.
How do you estimate staffing needs for a project?
Break the scope into phases and deliverables, estimate the hours each role needs for each one, and spread those hours across the weeks. Then divide the busiest week's hours by a standard full-time week to see how many people you need at the peak.
What's the difference between a staffing plan and a resource plan?
A project staffing plan covers one project's roles and hours before people are booked. A resource plan covers everyone across all projects and shows who is booked on what.
How do you handle unfilled roles on a project?
Mark them as open seats, note the first week each one is needed, and start recruiting or finding a freelancer before that week. Check whether someone in the same role elsewhere could cover it first.