Live-in carer pay: what you take home a day, a week and a month

The weekly rate is the one to plan around, because it is the figure on your profile and in the contract. The day figure is that week divided by seven, and it is useful in two places. The first is a placement that starts or finishes part way through a week. The second is comparing a live-in rate with hourly or shift work, where you think in days rather than weeks. Our live-in commission is worked out per 24-hour day, so dividing the week by seven gives the same answer.

The month column comes from an example rotation, and the next section explains how it is worked out. None of these figures is a promise of work. They are the arithmetic on a week you have already agreed with a client.

Families see a different page about the same money. What families are told about live-in carer pay explains the rate from their side, which is worth reading before you talk about your rate with a family. How much to charge as a self-employed carer covers setting the rate in the first place.

The two yearly figures above are the difference between a salary and a rotation. Multiplying a week by 52 assumes you are in a placement every week of the year, with no weeks off, no gap between one client and the next, and no holiday. It is not a fair basis for planning. The weeks between placements are yours, and they are unpaid, so the yearly figure depends on how many weeks you choose to work and how quickly one placement follows another.

A rotation is something you agree with a client, not a rule. Some families want the same carer for two weeks at a time with a second carer covering the other two. Others want longer stretches. When you are looking at placements, work out the month from the weeks you would work in it, and ask whether the family has a second carer for the weeks you are away. How to find a live-in care job covers where placements are advertised and what to ask before you accept one, and you can see the carer jobs open near you, including live-in work.

When the money reaches you follows each client's billing, which is set up client by client. If you have two placements in a month, they may not pay on the same day, so plan your month around the weeks you have finished rather than a fixed payday.

Two things make these figures lower in practice. The first is your costs. Your profit is what you earn minus allowable business expenses, and tax is worked out on the profit, so costs such as travel between placements that counts as business travel, or your DBS Update Service subscription, reduce the tax. Allowable expenses for self-employed carers sets out what counts. The second is anything else you earn: if you also have a job taxed through PAYE, your Personal Allowance may already be used, and more of your live-in income is taxed.

The rates behind the cards come from gov.uk. Income Tax is 0% on the first £12,570 of income, 20% up to £50,270 and 40% above that. Class 4 National Insurance is 6% on profits between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% above. With profits of £7,105 or more, Class 2 is treated as paid, so your National Insurance record is protected without a separate payment. If you live in Scotland, Scottish Income Tax has its own bands, so the Income Tax figures above do not apply to you, though Class 4 is the same.

Timing matters as much as the amount. You register for Self Assessment by 5 October after the tax year in which you started, and the bill is due by 31 January. Once a year's bill is £1,000 or more, HMRC also asks for payments on account towards the next year, on 31 January and 31 July, so your second January can ask for much more than your first. How to pay tax as a self-employed carer goes through registering and paying step by step.

Nights are the one that affects your health as well as your pay. What families are told about live-in care against 24-hour care is that a live-in rate assumes up to two short wakings a night, and that three or more most nights means a second carer is needed at night. If a placement turns out that way, raise it with the family early. A higher weekly rate does not give you back the sleep. Under the contract you manage your own breaks, and the family is expected to give you chances to rest.

Travel needs care on both sides. What families are told about travel pay for live-in carers is that it is not part of the rate but reasonable to raise. Under the contract, any travel charge must be agreed in advance and in writing, with the rate and the circumstances. For your own tax, gov.uk lists vehicle running costs such as fuel, and train, bus and taxi fares, as allowable travel expenses, but not travel between home and work. Whether a journey to a placement counts depends on the facts, so check before you claim it. If you use simplified expenses for a car, gov.uk gives the flat rate for 2026/27 as 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p after that (checked 22 September 2026). The 45p rate applied before 6 April 2026.

Helping Hands publishes a weekly salary of up to £675 for employed live-in carers, before tax. It is one published figure, and other employers pay differently. Read against it, the self-employed figure is higher, and the gap is what pays for the things an employer would otherwise cover.

As an employee you would be entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, statutory sick pay if you qualify, and, if you are eligible, a workplace pension that your employer pays into. Self-employed, you have none of those. Every week off is unpaid, a week off sick is unpaid, and any pension is one you set up and fund. So compare a year of weeks worked, after your own holiday, against a year of salary, and set aside something for the weeks you cannot work.

The minimum wage works the same way. The National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over from 1 April 2026, but gov.uk lists self-employed people running their own business among those not entitled to it. As a self-employed live-in carer, the floor under your pay is the rate you set. What care workers are paid in the UK sets out employed pay across the sector, with the sources.

If the numbers work for you and you want to take live-in placements on your own terms, you can register as a carer on PrimeCarers and set your own weekly rate.

The notice rule is the one that most affects a carer's month. For the first 168 hours of a placement, which is one full week, either side can end it with 48 hours of notice. After that it is 7 days. So in the first week of a new placement, the income you had counted on for the rest of the rotation is less settled than it will be later. A placement you have just started is a reason to keep a little more aside.

If you cannot stay, the contract lets you send a suitable substitute, whom you arrange and pay yourself, and the client can reasonably object to them. If you need to leave because staying would put you at risk, nothing in the contract stops you. Where you and a family disagree about what is owed, you can ask PrimeCarers to help the two of you talk it through, but the contract is between you and the client, and the outcome is for the two of you to agree.