Parents ask this before anything else, and most answers online are either a single average or a sales page. Below are the published UK figures with the source and year for each, and a guide to what a fair price looks like for GCSE and A-level science and maths. Every price figure here comes from a named, dated source.
How much does tutoring cost per hour in the UK?
Tutoring in the UK costs between about £15 and £60 an hour for most GCSE and A-level lessons, and the biggest single factor is who is teaching. Tutorful, a UK tutoring marketplace, states in its June 2024 pricing guide that “the average price for a tutor per hour is £37.45”, with GCSE lessons averaging £35.86 and A-level lessons £41.88.
Other published figures sit around the same centre. MyTutor’s pricing page advertises one-to-one tuition from £26 an hour, with tutors setting their own prices in tiers from £25+ to £65+. Teachers To Your Home, an agency that says its tutors are qualified and experienced teachers, says in its September 2026 parent guide that private tutoring “can cost anywhere from around £20 per hour to £100 per hour or more”.
So a parent paying £35 to £45 an hour is paying around the marketplace average. Below £25 you are usually paying a student or a new tutor. Above £60 you should be able to say exactly what the extra buys.
What are typical tutoring rates per hour by tutor type and level?
Tutoring rates per hour rise in steps with the tutor’s qualifications and with the level being taught. The table below lists only figures published by the named source, with the year the source gives.
| Tutor type or level | Typical hourly rate | Source and year |
|---|---|---|
| Student or inexperienced tutor | £15–£30 | Teachers To Your Home parent guide, 2026 |
| Platform entry tier (“emerging tutors”) | £25+ | MyTutor pricing, 2026 |
| Graduate or experienced tutor | £25–£45 | Teachers To Your Home parent guide, 2026 |
| Marketplace average, all tutors, online | £37.45 | Tutorful, June 2024 |
| Marketplace average, all tutors, face-to-face | £40.54 | Tutorful, June 2024 |
| GCSE lessons, marketplace average | £35.86 | Tutorful, June 2024 |
| A-level lessons, marketplace average | £41.88 | Tutorful, June 2024 |
| Qualified teacher | £40–£60+ | Teachers To Your Home parent guide, 2026 |
| Qualified-teacher agency (most of its listed teachers) | from about £40 online, about £46 face-to-face | Teachers To Your Home, 2026 |
| Platform top tier (“experienced tutors with impressive credentials in and out of the classroom”) | £65+ | MyTutor pricing, 2026 |
Two cautions. Marketplace averages blend students, graduates and teachers, so a qualified teacher on Tutorful is likely to charge above £37.45. And two names you may expect are missing: First Tutors has closed (its site shows a closure notice) and no longer publishes averages, and no dated national figure from Superprof could be verified for this page, so neither is listed.
What drives the price of a tutor?
Four things drive a private tutor’s hourly price: qualifications and experience, the level taught, the subject, and whether lessons are online or in your home. Tutorful’s own averages show each effect: face-to-face tutoring averages £40.54 against £37.45 online; A-level averages £41.88 against £35.86 for GCSE; and within science, Physics averages £43.04 against £36.33 for general science, with Further Maths at £45.76 against £36.12 for maths.
The Education Endowment Foundation notes the same pattern from the National Tutoring Programme: costs “are lower for online delivery compared to in person tuition and are higher when provided by qualified or specialist teachers”. Location adds a layer on top. Teachers To Your Home reports that face-to-face tuition tends to cost more in London and other high-cost areas, a premium that online lessons largely remove.
Qualification is the lever that is hardest to see from a profile. Teachers To Your Home’s guide puts a graduate or experienced tutor at £25 to £45 and a qualified teacher at £40 to £60 or more, so a chemistry graduate and a qualified chemistry teacher can sit in different price bands. What that difference buys is explained in qualified teacher tutor vs student tutor.
What does a fair price for a GCSE tutor look like?
A fair price for a GCSE tutor is one that matches the tutor’s qualification band and comes with a plan you can check. Use this rule of thumb against the table above.
- Under £25 an hour: expect a sixth-former or undergraduate. Fair for confidence, homework help and working through past papers with a motivated child. Do not expect a diagnosis of why marks are being lost.
- £25 to £45 an hour: a graduate or an experienced non-teacher tutor. Ask which exam board and specification they teach to, and how they mark work.
- £40 to £60 an hour: the qualified-teacher band. At this price you should get marking against the real mark scheme, a named list of gaps after the first two sessions, and knowledge of your child’s exam board.
- Above £60 an hour: specialist territory. A-level Further Maths, a tutor with SEND training, or a scarce subject can justify it. Ask what specifically you are paying for.
If the price and the band do not match, ask why. A £55 tutor without QTS or classroom experience needs a very good answer.
How does group tuition change the price?
Group tuition brings the hourly cost per child down sharply, because one teacher’s hour is shared. The clearest UK figures come from the first year of the National Tutoring Programme (2020-21), where the EEF reports that schools bought subsidised one-to-one tuition in 15-hour blocks for an average of £167 to £180 per pupil, while groups of two or three cost £70 to £100 per pupil for the same 15 hours. On those subsidised prices, group lessons cost roughly half per child.
The private market has the same shape. A qualified teacher who charges £45 one-to-one can run a group of three at a lower per-child rate and still earn more per hour, which is one way families afford a teacher rather than a student. Priority Education, this site’s tutoring partner, teaches maths in small groups of similar ability and similar target grades; its lesson formats are on the tutoring page and its prices are discussed on the free call rather than published here.
Whether groups work as well as one-to-one is covered in small group tuition vs one-to-one.
Should I think in cost per grade instead of cost per hour?
Cost per grade is the number that matters to a family, and the hourly rate is only an input to it. As a worked example, one hour a week across 30 weeks of the school year at £40 an hour is £1,200 for one subject. Twice a week is £2,400. Three subjects at one hour each is £3,600.
Set that against what tuition typically achieves. The EEF puts one-to-one tuition at approximately five additional months’ progress on average, with +4 months in secondary schools and +2 in mathematics; small group tuition averages four months, with +2 in secondary schools and +3 in maths. Those are moderate gains, not transformations, and months of progress do not convert directly into GCSE grades. The money is most likely to pay off for a child close to a grade boundary.
The decision rule is to buy tutoring in blocks with a review. Name the target: a 5 to a 6 in maths, say. Ask the tutor to name the gap they are closing. Review after a term, around 12 to 15 hours, which is the dose that, according to NFER’s 2024 report for the Department for Education, was “recommended to have meaningful impact” under the National Tutoring Programme. If a mock or a marked past paper has not moved after that, change the tutor, the format or the plan. How much to buy for different starting points is in how many hours of tutoring for GCSE, and the series starts at choosing and paying for a tutor.
If you want to talk it through with a qualified teacher first, book a free call.