How Much Does a Private Tutor Cost in the UK? 2026 Prices Explained

The table below pulls together the most consistently cited 2026 rate data, drawn from Tutorful platform averages (widely cited by third-party sources), TutorLab's May 2026 rate review, and a Parentkind/YouGov survey that found a market average of £37.50 per hour across all levels. These figures represent typical independent or platform-listed tutors in England — not premium agency rates at the top end or student tutors at the bottom.

A few patterns are worth highlighting. First, the jump from GCSE to A-level rates is real and consistent — the subject content is harder, the pool of qualified tutors is smaller, and the stakes are higher, so rates reflect all three. Second, the range within each level is wider than the table suggests: a student tutor in their second year of university and a qualified teacher with 20 years' experience are both listed as “GCSE tutors”, but their rates — and what they deliver — are very different. The table's lower bound tends to reflect less experienced tutors; the upper bound reflects specialists with strong track records.

The range from £15 to £150 an hour is not random. Six factors account for most of the variation:

Subject scarcity

Subjects with a small pool of qualified tutors command higher rates. Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry and engineering-adjacent subjects sit at the upper end of A-level pricing precisely because fewer people can teach them to the depth the A-level requires. General English at primary level, by contrast, has a wide supply of tutors, which holds rates lower.

Qualifications and experience

Tutors with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) or a PGCE typically charge £5–£15/hr more than unqualified tutors at the same level. Tutors with 5+ years of private tuition experience can justifiably charge 20–40% more than someone newly starting out. Examiner experience — a tutor who has marked papers for AQA, Edexcel or OCR and knows exactly how marks are allocated — is genuinely valuable and commands a premium at the upper end of each range. Tutors with PhDs or specialist postgraduate degrees in their subject tend to charge above undergraduate-degree holders, particularly at A-level and degree level.

Region and location

London tutors charge roughly 20–30% more than the national average, with premium London agency rates reaching £60–£95/hr for GCSE and £90–£120/hr for A-level — figures that reflect both a higher cost of living and a concentration of high-demand selective schools. Outside London, the North East and Wales sit at the lower end (£28–£40/hr across levels) while the South East, Home Counties and university cities like Oxford sit above the national midpoint.

Online versus in-person

Online tuition removes the tutor's travel time and costs, and that saving is typically passed on. The difference is around £5–£10/hr for the same tutor, or roughly 10–20% across the market as a whole. (Tutorful's data puts in-person at approximately £40.54/hr versus online at £37.45/hr — a gap of about £3.) In London, where travel takes longer and costs more, the in-person premium can reach £10–£20/hr.

SEN and specialist needs

Tutors who specialise in supporting students with additional learning needs — dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD — typically charge 20–25% more than standard rates. The specialist knowledge and additional preparation involved in adapting materials and approaches genuinely justifies the premium.

Traditional tutoring agencies typically charge families a rate that includes a 20–40% commission, meaning the tutor receives 60–80% of what you pay. That commission funds the agency's matching service, DBS vetting, curriculum oversight, and accountability — there is genuine value in it, particularly for families who would rather not spend an hour reading tutor profiles and checking credentials themselves.

Online marketplace platforms — Tutorful, MyTutor, Superprof, TutorHunt — work differently to traditional agencies: tutors set their own rates, the platform takes a percentage, and headline prices are lower as a result. Premium full-service agencies such as HRB Education or The Profs sit at the other extreme: The Profs, for example, charges from £60/hr for GCSE support, £75/hr for undergraduate and £150+/hr for specialist Oxbridge admissions preparation. That reflects both agency positioning and the profile of tutors on their books.

Independent tutors who work directly with families — without a platform middleman — typically charge in the £30–£55/hr range at GCSE and A-level, depending on subject and experience. The trade-off is that the family does more of the vetting work at the outset. The questions in the “questions to ask” section below are designed to make that process straightforward.

Online tuition has become a genuinely mainstream option — not a second-best — and for many students it works as well as being in the same room. The price advantage is modest but real: the same tutor will typically charge £5–£10/hr less online, because they have no travel time to absorb. Online group sessions push that further: three to five students sharing a session can each pay as little as £10–£25 per hour.

The honest caveat is that the format matters more for some students than others. Younger children and those who find it hard to concentrate on a screen tend to get more from in-person sessions, particularly at primary level. GCSE and A-level students who are self-motivated and reasonably comfortable with technology usually find the online format entirely adequate — the teaching, feedback and relationship with the tutor are the same either way.

Oxford occupies a mid-premium position in the national rate table. TutorCruncher regional data puts the Oxfordshire average at around £37.02/hr across all subjects and levels — just above the national midpoint, ranking eighth among English regions. That is well below central London (where agency rates at GCSE level start from £60/hr and reach £95/hr) but above Northern England and Wales.

The slightly elevated Oxford rate reflects two local realities. First, the cost of living in Oxford and the surrounding area is higher than most of England outside London. Second — and this is specific to Oxford — there is an unusually high supply of university-affiliated tutors: postgraduate students and early-career academics from the University of Oxford represent a significant part of the local tutor pool, particularly at A-level and university level, and their credentials and specialist knowledge push the average upward.

For the families I work with across Oxford, Kidlington, Bicester, Didcot, Witney and Abingdon, the practical experience is that rates for maths tuition and science tuition from a tutor with genuine subject depth, board knowledge and experience typically sit in the range described by the table above — not at London premium levels, but not at the lower end of the national market either. My own rates depend on year group and lesson length; I would always encourage families to get in touch for current pricing rather than rely on a quoted figure that may be out of date.

The cheapest tutor is almost never the best value — but neither is the most expensive. The question is what a tutor delivers for their rate. These are the things that genuinely move a student's grade:

• Exam board knowledge. AQA, Edexcel and OCR each have different question styles, mark schemes and specification emphases. A tutor who knows your child's specific board can teach to the paper — not just to the subject — which makes a measurable difference, especially at GCSE and A-level.
• A diagnostic-first approach. The first lesson should identify where the gaps are, not start at chapter one of the textbook. A tutor who runs a proper diagnostic before committing to a plan will almost always produce faster results than one who works through a syllabus in order.
• Regular feedback to parents. Tuition should not be a black box. A brief update after each lesson — what was covered, what clicked, what needs more work — is not optional; it is how families know whether the lessons are working.
• A current DBS check. Non-negotiable for any tutor working with children at home. Ask for evidence before the first lesson; any professional tutor will expect the question and be able to produce it.
• Subject depth, not just degree level. A tutor with a first-class degree in the subject they teach will generally explain difficult concepts more clearly than one working at the edge of their own knowledge. For maths and science in particular — subjects where the jump from GCSE to A-level is steep — this matters.

A short initial conversation with any tutor will tell you most of what you need to know. Here are the seven questions I would ask — as a parent, not just as a tutor:

Most tutors are conscientious and professional. But the following are genuine warning signs worth taking seriously before you commit:

• No DBS check, or reluctance to provide evidence of one. This is the most important safeguarding signal. Any tutor who works regularly with children should hold a current DBS and produce it without hesitation.
• No diagnostic session, straight into teaching. A tutor who begins the first lesson with chapter one of the revision guide — without first finding out what the student actually knows — is almost certainly wasting the family's money on ground that has already been covered.
• No awareness of the exam board specification. If a tutor cannot say which past papers they use, or cannot explain the key differences between the boards, they are not teaching to the exam your child is actually sitting. For GCSE and A-level, this is a fundamental gap.
• Requiring a large upfront block payment before any lessons. A small block discount of 5–10% for pre-paid sessions is standard and reasonable. Being asked to pay for ten sessions in full before the first lesson starts should give you pause — particularly if you have not seen the tutor teach yet.
• No feedback or updates between lessons. If weeks pass without any communication about how lessons are going, you cannot know whether the sessions are working. Parent communication is a basic professional standard, not a premium add-on.

This is the question underneath the cost question — and it is worth being honest about, because the answer varies enormously depending on what is being fixed. The Education Endowment Foundation's Teaching and Learning Toolkit gives one-to-one tuition an average impact of approximately +5 months of additional progress — larger at primary level (+6 months) than secondary (+4 months). The evidence is rated as moderate quality, drawn from a substantial body of studies.

Crucially, the EEF also notes what format of tuition the evidence supports: short, regular sessions — around 30 minutes, three to five times per week — delivered over a set period of up to ten weeks. That is a very different model from the typical weekly hour-long lesson. In practice, most UK families work with weekly sessions because they fit the school timetable and family life, and weekly one-to-one tuition does produce real improvement — but the evidence suggests that frequency matters as much as duration.

The Sutton Trust's Private Tutoring 2026 report (published February 2026) found that 29% of secondary school students in England and Wales have now received private tutoring at some point — up from 18% twenty years ago. Year 11 is the year group most likely to have had tutoring at some point (25%), which maps directly onto the pressure of GCSE preparation. The end of the National Tutoring Programme in September 2024 — with 58% of schools reducing their tutoring provision in 2025 as a result — has shifted the weight back onto private provision for families who want targeted one-to-one support.

Not every family needs, or can afford, regular one-to-one tuition at full independent-tutor rates. The alternatives are worth understanding clearly, because the evidence on some of them is better than their lower price might suggest.

Small-group tuition — one tutor to two to five students — costs £10–£25 per student per hour in most formats, a 30–50% saving versus one-to-one. The EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit rates small-group tuition at +4 months of additional progress, based on 62 studies — one month less than the +5 months recorded for one-to-one, which is a lot of progress for a substantially lower price. The caveat is that small-group tuition works best when the students are at a similar level and share similar gaps — and the teacher can still track individual progress. A group of five students with very different starting points is less likely to match that evidence.

Centre-based providers such as Explore Learning work on a monthly membership rather than a per-hour rate. Group maths and English support in-centre starts at around £114 a month for one weekly session (roughly £26–£29 a session), and online one-to-one starts at around £149 a month — broadly comparable to the mid-market independent tutoring range. Membership prices vary by location and change over time, so check directly with the provider. These services suit families who want structured, regular support without the variability of finding and vetting an independent tutor.

Online platforms such as MyTutor offer tiered pricing: emerging tutors from £25/hr, experienced tutors from £45/hr, and expert tutors from £65/hr. The breadth of choice is an advantage; the trade-off is that platform-mediated tuition has less of the continuity and parent communication that you get from a long-term relationship with an independent tutor who knows a child well.

My recommendation: if budget is the main constraint, a small-group online option or a platform tutor at the experienced tier is a reasonable starting point, particularly for KS3 and early GCSE students who are building general skills rather than targeting a specific exam gap. For students in Year 10, 11 or at A-level with a defined subject and board — especially in maths or science — an experienced one-to-one tutor who knows the specification and sets a clear diagnostic plan will almost always produce better results per pound than a cheaper option without that focus. For families considering 11+ preparation specifically, our guide to grammar schools and the 11+ near Oxford covers how to plan a sensible preparation timeline alongside the cost question.