Time to Fill: Formula, Benchmarks and Cost of Vacancy

Every open position runs on two clocks. One measures how long your selection takes: time to hire. The other runs from the day you need the role filled until the new person’s first working day: time to fill. The second clock is where the costs pile up, because as long as it runs, work stays undone.

This article shows you how to calculate time to fill, which figures are realistic for IT roles, what a vacancy costs and how to bridge the gap until the role is filled.

What Is Time to Fill?

Time to fill is a recruiting metric. It measures in days how long it takes to fill a position.

The end point is clear: the new person’s first working day, not the day the contract is signed. The start point is your choice. Larger companies usually count from the internal request or approval of the role, smaller ones often from the day the job ad goes live. There is no binding standard.

If you want to know what the vacancy costs, start counting on the day the work stops getting done. If you only count from the job ad, the weeks spent on the request, the budget and the job profile disappear from view.

How to Calculate Time to Fill

The formula is simple:

Time to fill = date of first working day – start date of the hiring process

An example: the role of a backend developer is approved on 3 March. She starts on 1 July. Time to fill is 120 days.

To get an average, add up the values for all filled positions and divide by their number. Look at each type of role separately: lumping a working student position together with a cloud architect tells you very little. And keep a record of the positions that were never filled. They drop out of the average, which makes the metric look better than reality.

Time to Fill vs. Time to Hire

The two metrics are often confused. Time to hire is part of time to fill:

In a permanent hire, the new person often still has to serve a notice period with their old employer between accepting your offer and starting. That is why time to fill can be much longer than time to hire, even if your selection runs fast. How to speed up the selection itself is covered in our article on time to hire.

How Long Does It Take to Fill an IT Position?

For IT roles in Germany, one figure gets quoted a lot: according to a survey by the digital association Bitkom (in German), it takes 7.7 months on average to fill a vacant IT position, just as long as two years earlier. Bitkom surveyed 855 companies between May and July 2025. It is Bitkom’s most recent figure on vacancy duration.

The market has eased somewhat since then. In September 2026, Bitkom reported 79,000 missing IT specialists (in German), almost half as many as the 149,000 in 2023. Still, 78 percent of companies see a shortage. The German Federal Employment Agency (in German, as of August 2026) paints a similar picture: shortages in software development were no longer visible in 2025, but some specialist occupations still showed hiring problems.

What this means for you: for common developer profiles, your search may be shorter than the average; for specialists, it often stays difficult. A general figure does not replace measuring your own.

In practice: How long a position has already been open when companies contact ElevateX cannot be generalized, says Sören Elser, founder and managing director of ElevateX. Some clients get in touch as soon as they think a freelancer could help, and then they talk the same day or the next. New clients, however, have sometimes spent several weeks or months searching without success before they turn to ElevateX.

What Does an Unfilled Position Cost?

Part of the cost is visible: job ads, recruiters, the time HR and the team spend on interviews. Our article on cost per hire covers these. Another part never shows up on an invoice: productivity is missing, decisions get delayed, projects stall, customers walk away and the team carries the extra work.

This is known as the cost of vacancy. Sören Elser has shared a simple formula on LinkedIn to estimate it:

Cost of vacancy = annual salary / working days × factor × time to fill

“The factor measures how critical the role is,” Sören writes:

• Factor 1 for temporary help
• Factor 2 for important skilled professionals
• Factor 3 for key roles with revenue responsibility

His example: a software developer with an annual salary of 62,000 euros, factor 2 and a time to fill of 120 days. With 250 working days a year, that comes to:

€62,000 / 250 × 2 × 120 = €59,520

“And that is a conservative estimate,” says Sören. Here is how much the factor matters for the same role with 120 days of vacancy:

Sören’s conclusion as a founder: “I’m not saving money when I wait too long. I’m losing time, focus, customers – and money.”

Use the cost of vacancy calculator to plug in your own figures. Whether a freelancer or a permanent hire pays off for the role is shown by our freelancer and employee cost comparison.

How to Reduce Time to Fill

Time to fill does not only depend on the selection. A lot of time is lost before and after it:

1. Report the need early: When someone hands in their notice, planning starts that day, not after the handover.
2. Get approvals first: Settle the budget, salary range and job profile before the ad goes live.
3. Sharpen the requirements: Separate must-haves from nice-to-haves. Every unnecessary requirement shrinks the pool of candidates.
4. Use several channels: Internal candidates, a talent pool, your network and personnel service providers. The pros and cons are compared in our article on internal and external recruiting.
5. Tighten the selection: Where the selection process usually gets stuck is covered in our article on time to hire.
6. Prepare the start: Contract, hardware and access are ready by day one. For external specialists, see our guide to freelancer onboarding in six steps.

Bridging the Vacancy With a Freelancer

Not every vacancy can be closed faster. In that case you can bridge the gap: a freelancer takes on the work while you keep looking for a permanent hire.

It cannot be put into an exact number, but by Sören’s estimate roughly 20 to 25 percent of placements through ElevateX start this way: the client is actually looking for a permanent employee but needs someone who can get going much faster. In parallel, the client keeps searching for the permanent hire. In Sören’s experience, such a bridge lasts four to six months on average.

This is what the timeline looks like with ElevateX:

• Profiles: You get the first matching profiles, up to three, within 48 hours of finalizing your request with us.
• Start: Given the pace at ElevateX and the flexibility of the freelancers, Sören’s experience is that a freelancer could start three to seven days after the request has been finalized. The bigger obstacle is usually processes, approvals and signatures still pending on the client’s side.
• Costs: They only start on the first working day. There is no minimum term.

“But it is absolutely realistic that a freelancer is ready to work within seven days, so a week or less, if the client cooperates well,” says Sören.

One boundary applies: the freelancer takes on a defined task and works independently. If you manage them like an employee, you risk false self-employment. Our guide to false self-employment explains what to watch out for.

Conclusion

Time to fill shows you how long a position stays open, and the cost of vacancy formula shows you what that costs. Measure it with a fixed start date, look at each type of role separately and check the time before and after the selection for delays. If the vacancy cannot be closed fast enough, a freelancer can take on the work until the permanent hire is in place.