How much to charge as a self-employed carer

A few things are worth reading out of the table. The hourly band is wide, and where you sit in it is a choice about the kind of work you take and how many families you want to hear from, which the next two sections come back to. Companionship is usually advertised a little below personal care, because it does not involve washing, dressing or moving somebody. A single visit of six hours or more is usually advertised lower per hour than a short visit, and because our commission on those visits is 15% rather than 20%, more of each pound reaches you.

These are national figures. There is no published breakdown of rates by town, so the best local guide is what carers near you advertise for the same kind of work. Look at a handful of profiles in your own area before you settle on a number, and look for carers doing similar work rather than the cheapest or the dearest.

Our commission, and why it comes out of your rate rather than being added to the family's bill, is set out in full in what carers earn on PrimeCarers, and what we take. This page does not repeat it. The other guides on pay, tax and finding work are gathered in carer resources.

The ladder is built on a 30-hour week, the full week the earnings guide uses, and on figures from gov.uk. Workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year under the holiday entitlement rules. Statutory Sick Pay is £123.25 a week, or 80% of normal weekly earnings if that is lower, for up to 28 weeks. An employer enrolling somebody in a workplace pension has to pay at least 3% of their qualifying earnings, which are earnings between £6,240 and £50,270 a year. None of those is paid to a self-employed carer, so each one becomes a cost your rate has to carry. The holiday step matches the rule gov.uk gives employers for workers on irregular hours, who build up holiday at 12.07% of the hours they work.

Two of the rungs are examples rather than rules. A week off sick and two weeks between clients are there to show how the figure moves; they are not an estimate of how often carers are ill or out of work. If you have regular clients and good health, your own figures might be smaller. If you are building up from nothing, the gap between clients in your first year could be much longer, and the rate you need would be higher.

The arithmetic also leaves some things out, on purpose. It does not include travel between clients, your DBS Update Service subscription, insurance, a phone or training, because those are business costs that come off your profit before tax. Allowable expenses for self-employed carers covers what you can claim. It leaves out tax as well, because an employee and a self-employed carer both pay Income Tax and National Insurance, although not in the same way. How to pay tax as a self-employed carer explains registering and paying.

If you want to try your own figures, the earnings calculator on carer resources turns a rate and a week of work into what reaches you. What care workers are paid in the UK sets out the employed wages in full, with their sources, if you want to measure yourself against a particular job rather than the legal minimum.

The last card is easy to overlook. Setting a rate is not only about the figure for one hour. A client who wants the same three long visits every week for a year can be worth more to you at a slightly lower rate than a scattered set of short calls at a higher one, because the unpaid time between them is smaller.

Experience counts too, though not in a way anybody else will price for you. Families read what you have written on your profile about the work you have done and the training you hold, and they ask you about it. A carer who can explain clearly what they have done, and for how long, is in a better position to ask for a rate near the top of the band than one who has not written anything.

Pricing well below everyone else nearby is rarely the answer to a quiet diary. It narrows the gap between your rate and your floor, and it can make a family wonder why. If work is slow, look first at your profile, your availability and how quickly you reply. Finding private clients covers what families look at when they choose.

The difference between a sleeping and a waking night is the thing to be clear about before you name a price. A sleeping night that turns into getting up four or five times is a waking night in all but name, and it is fair to raise that with the family and move to a waking night rate on a new contract if the pattern continues. What families are told about waking and sleeping nights shows how the choice is explained to them.

Live-in work is advertised by the week, but it is not a week of hands-on care around the clock. It usually means several hours of active support through the day and being on hand at night, with breaks that you manage yourself under the contract. A live-in rate needs to cover the weeks you are not on a placement as well, because live-in carers usually work in a rotation rather than every week of the year. Complex live-in care has its own band, from £1,260 a week, and a couple is usually advertised at about a fifth more than one person. Live-in carer pay, from your side goes into live-in rates in more depth.

England and Wales have 8 bank holidays a year. The next ones are Christmas Day on Friday 25 December 2026, and Boxing Day, which moves to Monday 28 December because the 26th falls on a Saturday. Then come New Year's Day, Good Friday on 26 March 2027 and Easter Monday on 29 March, the early May bank holiday on 3 May, the spring bank holiday on 31 May and the summer bank holiday on 30 August.

Because the uplift is in the contract, the family has agreed to it before the day comes. It still helps to mention it when you agree the visits, so nobody is surprised by the invoice. The contract applies the same multipliers to every booking, but it does not set out how they work on a weekly live-in rate or a night that crosses midnight, so agree that in writing before the day. Bank holiday and Christmas pay for carers goes through it.

Mileage is worth a moment on its own, because two different figures are involved and they are easy to mix up. The first is what you charge a client, which is whatever you agreed in writing. The second is what you can claim against tax. For the 2026/27 tax year, gov.uk sets the simplified expenses flat rate for a car or van at 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p a mile after that. Before 6 April 2026 the first figure was 45p, which is why older guides still quote it. Travel between your own clients is a business cost for tax even when no client pays you for it.

Travel time and mileage for carers covers how to agree and record travel with a client. Allowable expenses for self-employed carers covers what you can set against your profit.

1. 1

   Work out your floor

   Use the ladder above, or put your own week into the earnings calculator on carer resources, and note the lowest hourly rate you can work at without falling behind an employed wage.
2. 2

   Look at what carers near you advertise

   Compare profiles in your area for the same kind of work: personal care, companionship, nights or live-in. That is the only local rate guide there is.
3. 3

   Choose where in the band you sit

   Place yourself above your floor, using the work you take, your experience and the distances you travel as your reasons. Set separate rates for long visits, nights and live-in if you offer them.
4. 4

   Agree anything extra in writing

   Mileage, travel time and expenses are chargeable only if agreed in advance. Agree them with the family when you agree the visits.
5. 5

   Review it for new work

   You can change what you advertise at any time. The new rate applies to new contracts, and a client you already have stays on the rate you agreed with them.

The carer terms are specific about changing a rate for a client you already have. A rate should not change during a contract. If you and the client agree to a change before the contract ends, the current contract ends and a new one is agreed at the new rate. You cannot simply raise the rate on an existing client, and a client cannot be moved to a new rate without agreeing to it.

That makes a rate review a conversation rather than an announcement. If costs have gone up or the care has become heavier, explain what has changed and what you are proposing, give the family time to think about it, and agree the new contract before the new rate starts. A clear case, made early, is easier for a family to agree to than a surprise on the invoice.

The money for your work reaches you after the client's billing, and billing is per client, so it does not arrive on the same day for every client. Nothing is taken off for tax before you are paid, which is why the tax guide above matters from your first booking.

When you have a rate you are content with, you can register as a carer on PrimeCarers and put it on your profile. If you would rather see what is being asked for first, see the carer jobs open near you.

It can help to know what families have been told before they speak to you. What families are told about the hourly cost of a private carer and what families are told about hourly care costs at home are the pages they read when they compare prices.