How Much Is a Live-in Carer Paid?

A live-in carer in 2023 is typically paid between £110 and £160 per day or £770 to £1120 per week, depending on their experience, care complexity, and specific additional skills required, with potential increases expected in the future.

Those on the lower end tend to work for traditional agencies with relatively easy patients, and those on the higher end will work privately for a client while caring for a couple or a more challenging patient.

What causes the differences in live-in care pay?

The cost of live-in care doesn’t vary significantly based on location in the country, as carers will often travel multiple hours to reach a placement. This keeps prices relatively even across the country. The two primary metrics for how much a live-in carer will be paid are:

1. Agency or Private
2. Patient Complexity
3. Working Weeks

Agency or Private

A CQC registered care agency will often take a 30-50% cut of care work, leaving carers earning less. When working privately (directly with patients), a carer can take home 100% of the earnings or 90% when working via an introductory service.

Patient Complexity

The benefit of a live-in carer is the availability of a carer at most times of the day should a need arrive. In general, there is an expectation that a carer will perform about 6-8 hours of actual care work throughout 24 hours. When a patient has more complex needs or a carer is caring for a couple, the intensity of that care work and the number of hours required will increase. This generally leads to carers charging a higher day rate for complex patients.

Working Weeks

Last but not least is the actual number of weeks a year that a carer works for. Some carers will work half the weeks of the year while others will only take a few off. This leads to wildly different overall salaries, as demonstrated in PrimeCarers’ latest carer salary report.

How can I work out what a live-in carer should be paid?

As we’ve discovered above, live-in carer salaries can vary wildly, so how can you be sure that you are being paid a reasonable rate for a live-in carer? If you’re looking for a rough idea of how live-in care salaries are distributed on PrimeCarers.

You start with a lovely easy tea and cakes companionship job. For that, you are looking at £90/day. Add on the following factors:

• Personal Care (+£30/day) – If the client needs help with bathing, toileting, or dressing.
• Waking in the night but less than three times (+£10/day) – If the client doesn’t sleep through the night.
• Waking in the night three or more times frequently (+£20/day) – If the client frequently wakes at night (an overnight relief carer may also be required).
• Very poor mobility requiring hoists (+£20/day) –If the client needs lots of help moving around.
• Couples Care (+£50/day) – This one is a bit tricky, but in general, you should expect to pay a reasonable amount more, but nowhere close to double the price.

How can I increase my live-in care salary?

Working privately is the most significant step to increasing your live-in care income. If you want to increase your live-in carer salary, why not check out our article on becoming a self-employed carer?

One of the most critical skill sets when you decide to work privately is to be able to understand a client’s requirements accurately. When you understand a client’s needs, you can more accurately set a price for the work that matches what you are looking for.

If you want to see many job opportunities that match your pre-defined requirements, consider signing up for PrimeCarers as a carer. We’ve collected the above carer requirements and many more to give a significantly more accurate price estimate for every job.

What about hourly care?

The cost of hourly care does not change per hour in the same way that live-in care charges per day. This is because a live-in care day rate is static but hours worked per day vary, whereas if more hours are required from an hourly carer, they will simply be paid for more hours.

Hourly care prices are much more frequently determined by the carer locality/convenience and experience/skills of the hourly carer.

Conclusion

I hope this article gives you a good understanding of what you should charge for your next live-in care job. Please feel free to leave a comment with your own experiences of live-in care pricing, whether you agree or not.

If you want to find your next live-in care job, consider signing up with PrimeCarers. We charge the lowest live-in care fees of all the introductory services and have jobs across the country waiting for you.

If you would like to know more about live-in care, then why not check out our complete guide to live-in care?