How Much to Charge for Private Tutoring in 2026

What a tutoring quote needs to include

"£40/hour, GCSE Maths" is enough to start a WhatsApp conversation but not enough for a parent to commit a term of Tuesday evenings to. Cover these ten things and there's a shared record both sides can point back to:

1. 1Subject and level, stated specifically — "GCSE Maths, AQA Higher tier, currently targeting grade 7", not "maths tutoring."
2. 2Your qualifications and relevant experience (QTS, degree subject, examining or exam-board experience) in one line.
3. 3Your DBS check level and issue date — Enhanced, not Basic, for anything involving regular contact with a child — plus whether you're registered with the DBS Update Service.
4. 4Format: in-person at the student's home, your own home or a neutral venue, or online, and which platform if online.
5. 5Session length and frequency — weekly 60 minutes, twice-weekly, or an intensive half-term block.
6. 6Price per session, with any block or term pricing shown as its own line and the saving named, not folded silently into one total.
7. 7What's included beyond the hour itself — bespoke worksheets, past-paper marking, a short written progress note after each session.
8. 8Payment terms: pay per session, or in advance for a block or term, and how often you invoice.
9. 9Your cancellation and rescheduling policy, and the notice period required.
10. 10A line on safeguarding basics for online sessions with a under-18 — whether a parent or guardian is expected nearby, and whether sessions are recorded and, if so, where that recording is stored.

The DBS check rule that changed in January 2026

There has never been a blanket legal requirement for an independent, self-employed tutor to hold a DBS check — that obligation sits with tutoring agencies, who have had to run checks on staff doing regulated activity with children since 2010. For a tutor working directly for a family with no agency in between, this created a real gap: Enhanced checks, the level that includes the Children's Barred List, could only be applied for by an organisation. A self-employed individual could only get a Basic check on themselves — unspent convictions only, no Barred List at all, which is not the level a parent is actually trusting when they ask "do you have a DBS?"

That changed on 21 January 2026. Eligible self-employed people — private tutors and music teachers explicitly among them — can now apply for an Enhanced DBS check on themselves, without needing an agency or employer in the middle, by going through a registered DBS Umbrella Body. Not every umbrella body accepts self-employed applicants, so it's worth checking before you pay anything. Eligibility still depends on what the role actually involves rather than your job title, so confirm your specific tutoring setup qualifies before applying. DBS fees also fell from 5 October 2026 — an Enhanced check is now £41, down from £49.50, and a Basic check £20, down from £21.50.

In practice: get the Enhanced check yourself rather than waiting for a parent to ask, register with the DBS Update Service so it stays current without reapplying from scratch, and put the certificate level and issue date on your quote. A parent can ask to see your original certificate and compare it against your ID, but they can't apply for a check on your own behalf — so if you've been relying on "I'll get one if a parent asks", the easier route is now to just have it ready.

How to price tutoring sessions

By level and subject

2026 UK rates for 1:1 tuition cluster fairly predictably by level, with core STEM subjects and in-demand languages sitting toward the top of each band:

• Primary: £25–£35/hour.
• KS3 (Years 7–9): £30–£40/hour.
• GCSE: £35–£50/hour, with maths and the sciences typically at the upper end (around £37–£48).
• A-level: £40–£60/hour.
• 11+ and other entrance-exam prep: £45–£65/hour.
• SEN tutoring: £45–£70/hour, reflecting the extra planning and often one-to-one-only delivery.
• Oxbridge, medicine or other specialist entrance coaching: £60–£100+/hour.
• London and the South East typically run 10–25% above the rest of England for the same level and subject.

In-person vs online

Online sessions are usually priced a little below in-person, simply because there's no travel to build in. Work out your own real travel cost and time for an in-person session — not a rough guess — before setting an online rate to match it; undercutting your in-person rate to "stay competitive" online often means giving away the margin you were charging travel for in the first place.

Single sessions, blocks, and exam season

A trial or diagnostic session, priced low or free, lets a new family test the fit without committing to a term. Once they continue, a term-length block of 8–12 weekly sessions paid upfront is fair to discount 5–10% against the single-session rate — it secures a regular slot in your week and removes the admin of invoicing after every lesson. Keep exam-season intensive sessions on their own, usually higher, rate rather than quietly bundling them into the standard block price: demand, and the pressure on your own diary, is genuinely different in the weeks before mocks and real exams.

A worked example

A Year 11 student working toward GCSE Maths mock exams, booked for a half-term block:

£505 for a 45-minute diagnostic session, a 10-session half-term block at a 10% block discount against the £45 single-session rate, and a 90-minute intensive top-up the week before mocks. Enhanced DBS check issued March 2026, registered with the DBS Update Service. 48 hours' notice required to reschedule; sessions cancelled with less notice are charged in full.

Five details that get tutoring quotes accepted faster

• Put your DBS status on the quote, not just your website bio. "Enhanced DBS check, issued March 2026, registered with the Update Service" tells a parent exactly what they're getting in one line, on the document they're about to accept — which does more to settle a first-time booking than another testimonial.
• Separate the diagnostic from the ongoing block. A first session spent working out where a student actually is — not where their last report card says they are — is a different job from session eight of an existing programme. Price it as its own small item, or state clearly that it's free and the block starts after.
• Show the single-session rate next to the block discount. A parent can see exactly what committing to a half-term saves them over paying week to week, instead of wondering whether a flat block price is a fair deal or a markup in disguise.
• Name your cancellation policy before the first session, not after the first no-show. A family who agreed to 24–48 hours' notice in writing rarely argues about a late-cancellation charge. One hearing the policy for the first time after missing a slot usually does — and you've already turned other students away for that hour.
• Quote exam-season sessions at their own rate, named as such. "Intensive top-up session, exam week — £70" reads as a genuine extra service. The same session invoiced quietly at your normal rate, discovered later, reads as a price rise nobody agreed to.

The fastest way to do all of this

A single hourly rate for one student is easy enough to agree by text. A full roster of students, each on a different subject, level, block discount and renewal date, is a different job entirely — and it's exactly the kind of thing that ends up as a half-remembered price in a notes app rather than something either of you can point back to later.

This is what QuoteRocket is for. Describe the booking in plain English — "10-session GCSE Maths block, 60 minutes, in-person, 10% block discount, exam-week top-up session" — and it turns that into a branded, itemised PDF quote in under a minute. Parents accept it with one tap on their phone, and an accepted quote becomes an invoice in one click, so a returning family gets the same clean document every term instead of a WhatsApp message asking "same as last time?"

Whichever way you produce the quote, the principle holds: put your DBS status and issue date in writing, price the diagnostic separately from the block, and name your exam-season rate before exam season arrives rather than after.

Frequently asked questions

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