You can become a tutor in the UK without any licence or teaching qualification — what you need is genuine command of your subject, a DBS check if you work with children, and parents who trust you. Startup costs are close to zero, especially online. The realities worth knowing before you start: your teaching hours are squeezed into evenings and weekends, and the work follows the exam calendar. This page is part of our guide to starting a business.
Do you need qualifications or checks?
No licence, no registration, no mandatory qualification. Qualified teachers and examiners charge more because parents pay for confidence, but plenty of successful tutors are graduates, PhD students or professionals who know their subject cold.
The check that matters is the DBS check. If you tutor children, parents will ask — and "yes, here it is" wins the job. Self-employed tutors can request a basic check themselves (£21.50), and since January 2026 can also apply for an enhanced check (£49.50) themselves through a DBS umbrella body, which adds a small admin fee. Sort this before you advertise, not after a parent asks.
Online or in person
In-person tutoring wins on attention and suits younger children; online wins on everything else. No travel between students means more chargeable hours in the same evening, you can teach students anywhere in the country, and your rate is not capped by your postcode. Most new tutors now start online with a webcam, a quiet room and a shared whiteboard, and add in-person locally if demand appears.
If you go in person, decide early whether you travel to them or they come to you, and price the travel in — half an hour each way turns a £35 lesson into £35 for two hours of your evening.
What it costs to start
One-off, to get going: a DBS check (£21.50 basic, £49.50 enhanced), a decent webcam and headset if you are teaching online, and some past papers and materials for your subject. Most tutors start for well under £200.
Every month, once you are teaching: very little — software subscriptions if you use a tutoring platform or whiteboard tool, and platform commission if you find students through a marketplace, which can take a meaningful slice of each lesson. Public liability insurance is cheap and sensible, and professional indemnity is worth considering once you are giving exam advice — our insurance guide explains both.
What to charge, and what you would actually earn
Tutoring rates vary widely by subject, level and experience, so build your rate rather than copying one: what you need to earn, divided by the hours you can genuinely teach. Our pricing guide does the full working.
The honest constraint in this trade is the diary. School-age students are only available roughly 4pm to 8pm on weekdays plus weekend mornings — call it 20 teachable hours a week even before gaps, cancellations and half terms. A full evening diary at £35 an hour is real money; the mistake is multiplying your rate by 40 hours that do not exist.
The second constraint is the calendar. September to May is busy, with a surge before summer exams; then results come out and much of your student list graduates away. July and August are quiet. That is sales rhythm, not failure — but your plan has to name it, and your busy-month prices have to carry the quiet ones.
Getting your first students
Tutoring is bought by parents, and parents ask each other. The first students usually come from people who know you — say clearly what you tutor and at what level — and from local Facebook groups, which is where "can anyone recommend a maths tutor?" gets asked and answered every September. That makes Facebook the platform for this trade: be present, be helpful, and ask happy parents to name you in those threads. A free Google Business Profile catches the "tutor near me" searches, and tutoring marketplaces can fill early gaps while you build direct students who cost you no commission. Our guide to marketing a small business covers local search and referrals properly.
Want help getting customers? Our sister agency The Fractions runs ads and builds websites for small UK businesses — the pages, the ads and the enquiries behind them.
One tutoring-specific truth: results are your marketing. A student who goes from a grade 4 to a grade 7 generates more enquiries than anything you could buy, so teach the first few brilliantly and then ask for the recommendation.
The admin
Almost every tutor starts as a sole trader: register with HMRC, keep a record of lessons and income, file a Self Assessment return. There is a £1,000 trading allowance before you need to register at all, which covers the toe-in-the-water phase. Keep receipts for materials, software and travel. If you tutor in students' homes, tell your car insurer you use the car for work — it is usually a small or nil change, and it matters if anything happens.
Turning this into a plan
Take Sam, a maths tutor in Sheffield charging £35 an hour. In term time he teaches 4pm to 7pm four evenings a week plus Saturday mornings — about 15 booked hours in a good week, so roughly £2,100 a month of sales at full stretch. His costs are small, perhaps £100 a month across software and materials, but around 38 teaching weeks a year means the annual picture, not the best month, is the real number: closer to £19,000 to £20,000 of sales a year before tax at those hours. A plan makes this visible in October, not July — and shows exactly what raising the rate to £40, or adding two online students in the quiet months, does to the year.
Create a mini business plan in minutes with Plan.business. Put in your rate, your hours and your costs, and it works out the rest — what you will make, when you break even, and what you need to charge to hit your target.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need a qualification to be a tutor in the UK? No. There is no licence or mandatory qualification for private tutoring. Qualified teachers and examiners can charge more, but subject knowledge, patience and results are what parents are buying. A DBS check is expected when tutoring children (£21.50 basic, £49.50 enhanced), and you should arrange one before advertising.
How much do tutors earn in the UK? It depends on subject, level and how full your evening diary is. Work it out honestly: your hourly rate times realistic teachable hours — mostly weekday evenings and weekend mornings in term time — minus software, materials and any platform commission. A full diary is a solid income; the summer holidays are quiet and the plan should say so.
Do tutors need a DBS check? There is no law requiring one for private tutoring, but parents expect one and many will not book without it. Self-employed tutors can request a basic check themselves (£21.50), and since January 2026 can apply for an enhanced check (£49.50) through a DBS umbrella body.
Is online tutoring better than in person? Online gives you more chargeable hours (no travel), students beyond your town, and a rate set by your subject rather than your postcode. In person suits younger children and students who struggle to focus on a screen. Many tutors do both — online as the base, in person locally where it pays.
Do I have to pay tax on tutoring income? Yes, above the £1,000 trading allowance. Register with HMRC as self-employed, keep a simple record of lessons and costs, and file a Self Assessment return. Materials, software and business travel reduce your taxable profit.
Figures correct as of September 2026. Tax thresholds, fees and rates change; check the linked GOV.UK pages before acting. Prices and costs shown are indicative and vary by area and by what's included.
What is Plan?
Plan is a free business operating system for people starting or newly running a UK business. It walks you, one simple step at a time, from your elevator pitch through brand, product and pricing, to a complete business plan — then uses everything it now knows about the business to help with the basics: logo and brand, marketing, a website, a bank account, funding, insurance, company registration. You can use as much or as little as you want.
Two ways to do this
Do it yourself, free. Plan walks you through the numbers side of tutoring — your rate, your teachable hours, the quiet months — one short question at a time, in your browser. Do just this bit and stop there if that is all you need.
Or get help being found. If you would rather someone built the website and ran the ads that fill your diary, our sister agency The Fractions does exactly that for small UK businesses.