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Wages and agency fees for household staff in the United Kingdom

As of 25 October 2026

This guide summarises what a private household in the United Kingdom, in London for instance, must pay household staff at least, what the official earnings statistics say about comparable occupations, and what placement agencies may charge and actually charge. Minimum wage, statistics and rules come from legislation and official pages, the fees from the websites of the agencies in the register; every figure carries its source, all retrieved on 25 October 2026. The text is an orientation, not legal or tax advice and not a pay recommendation. The rules on agencies, PAYE, workplace pensions, Ofsted and visas are in the guide Hiring household staff in the United Kingdom.

At a glance

Minimum wage, living in and sleep-in hours

The minimum wage rises every 1 April. Since 1 April 2026 the National Living Wage has been £12.71 per hour for workers aged 21 and over, the National Minimum Wage £10.85 for 18 to 20 year olds and £8.00 for under 18s and apprentices. Anyone who hires a nanny, housekeeper, gardener or anyone else to work in their home who is not self-employed and not paid through an agency is their employer and owes at least this wage.

Until 31 March 2024 workers who lived in the household as part of the family, with free accommodation and meals, were exempt from the minimum wage; the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2024 removed that exemption. Since 1 April 2024 live-in nannies, housekeepers and carers are entitled to the minimum wage for every hour of work. Free accommodation may be counted at £11.10 a day or £77.70 a week; if the household charges more for the accommodation, the excess reduces pay for the minimum wage calculation. Au pairs, according to the government page, are usually not classed as workers and receive pocket money, usually at least £90 a week; whether a person is a worker depends on the facts, and if they are, the minimum wage applies.

For sleep-in shifts the Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that hours in which the worker is asleep count towards the minimum wage only when the worker is awake for the purpose of working. There is no statutory premium for night work, no thirteenth month and no collective agreement binding all households. The London Living Wage of the Living Wage Foundation is a voluntary rate adopted by over 4,000 employers in London, £13.85 from April 2025 and £14.80 since autumn 2025 according to London borough councils; the only statutory floor in London remains the National Living Wage.

What official statistics say about pay

The earnings statistics of the Office for National Statistics, the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), were published on 22 October 2026 for April 2026: the median for full-time employees was £811.20 a week, £20.81 an hour excluding overtime and £40,911 a year for employees who had been in their job for at least a year; in 2025 it was £39,039. Private households as employers, division 97 in the industrial classification, cannot be shown separately because the sample is too small; the office points to occupations across all industries instead. The median for housekeepers therefore mixes hotels and private homes, the one for chauffeurs is dominated by taxi drivers, the one for chefs by restaurants.

The occupation codes under which household staff appear in the statistics (SOC 2020, according to an ONS response of April 2025 and the Home Office list of occupations): 6231 Housekeepers and related occupations for housekeepers and, lacking a code of their own, butlers; 6240 Cleaning and housekeeping managers and supervisors for the head of the household staff; 9223 Cleaners and domestics; 5434 Chefs and 5435 Cooks; 8213 Taxi and cab drivers and chauffeurs; 6116 Nannies and au pairs; 2319 for private tutors; 4215 Personal assistants and other secretaries; 5113 Gardeners and landscape gardeners; 6232 Caretakers; 6135 Care workers and home carers; 9231 Security guards and related occupations; 1251 Property, housing and estate managers. The medians per code are in ASHE Table 14 (annual and hourly pay, full-time, sheet Full-Time), which the office publishes as a zip archive of Excel workbooks; Table 15 has the same occupations by region, so for London too, Table 26 the care workers.

The National Careers Service of the Department for Education gives a salary range per job profile from starter to experienced, drawn from statistics, industry bodies and job vacancies: hotel housekeeper £21,000 to £28,000, cleaner £19,000 to £25,000, chef £22,000 to £40,000, care worker £20,000 to £25,000, taxi driver with a pointer to chauffeur work £20,000 to £35,000, gardener £24,000 to £32,000, security officer £20,000 to £35,000, executive assistant or personal assistant £28,000 to £60,000; for nanny and bodyguard it says "variable", and for butler, house manager and private chef there is no profile. These are benchmarks for the labour market as a whole, not figures for private households, which regularly pay experienced staff above them.

What agencies may charge

An agency may charge work-seekers nothing for finding them work; the only exception in the Conduct Regulations 2003 concerns performers, models and professional sportspeople, not household staff, nannies or au pairs. For fees charged to the household neither the Act nor the Regulations set a cap; the inspectorate describes them as a business-to-business arrangement. The agency must set out its terms in writing before the first service, including the fee and the circumstances in which it pays refunds or rebates; there is no statutory right to a refund, a replacement or a trial period, what counts is what the terms say.

If the household takes on a temporarily supplied worker permanently, the agency may charge a transfer fee only if the contract offers the household, as an alternative, an extended period of hire after which the worker transfers free of charge, and only within the later of 8 weeks after the last day worked or 14 weeks after the first. VAT of 20 percent comes on top of the fee; for temporarily supplied staff it applies to the whole invoice including the wages, for a pure introduction only to the agency's own charge. A private household cannot reclaim it.

Fees published in the register

Of the 18 entries for household staffing agencies in London, four state fees on their website; the rest quote on request. The published figures, as of 25 October 2026, with the source on the respective entry page:

A worked example: on an annual salary of £40,000, roughly the median of all full-time employees, 18 percent is £7,200 and £8,640 with VAT, 20 percent £8,000 and £9,600, 25 percent £10,000 and £12,000. All agencies with published fees are on the page Agencies with published fees. Of the nine lifestyle concierges in London, only Innerplace states a price, £100 a month on its About page.

What the household pays on top

In the 2026 to 2027 tax year the household as employer pays 15 percent National Insurance on pay above £96 a week, £417 a month or £5,000 a year; the employee pays 8 percent on pay above £242 a week. Households may not use the Employment Allowance of £10,500 for staff in personal, household or domestic work such as a nanny or gardener, only for carers or support workers. Added to this are at least 3 percent workplace pension on qualifying earnings for employees aged between 22 and State Pension age earning at least £10,000 a year, Statutory Sick Pay from the first day of sickness at £123.25 a week or 80 percent of average earnings if lower, 5.6 weeks of paid holiday and employers' liability insurance.

On the annual salary of £40,000 from the example, that is £5,250 National Insurance a year plus the pension; on £30,000 it is £3,750, on £60,000 £8,250. HMRC provides Basic PAYE Tools, free payroll software for employers with fewer than ten employees that works out tax and National Insurance. Details on PAYE, workplace pensions and Tax-Free Childcare are in the guide Hiring household staff in the United Kingdom.

Sources

All sources retrieved on 25 October 2026.

  1. HM Revenue and Customs, Rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027, gov.uk
  2. The National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2024 (SI 2024/75), regulation 2, legislation.gov.uk; HMRC, National Minimum Wage Manual NMWM05180, gov.uk
  3. GOV.UK, Employing someone to work in your home, including the chapter on au pairs, gov.uk
  4. Supreme Court, Royal Mencap Society v Tomlinson-Blake and Shannon v Rampersad [2021] UKSC 8, press summary, supremecourt.uk
  5. London Borough of Lambeth, Implementing the new living wage rates, 11 March 2025, lambeth.gov.uk; Royal Borough of Greenwich, Increase in London Living Wage, 2025, royalgreenwich.gov.uk
  6. Office for National Statistics, Employee earnings in the UK: 2026, 22 October 2026, ons.gov.uk; Employee earnings in the UK: 2025, ons.gov.uk; ASHE Table 14, Occupation by four-digit SOC, ons.gov.uk; ASHE Table 15, Region by occupation, ons.gov.uk; ASHE Table 26, Care workers, ons.gov.uk
  7. Office for National Statistics, Occupational breakdown of domestic workers in private households, response FOI-2025-2744 of 30 April 2025, ons.gov.uk; Home Office, Skilled Worker visa: eligible occupations and codes, gov.uk
  8. National Careers Service, job profiles Housekeeper, Cleaner, Chef, Care worker, Taxi driver, Nanny, Gardener, Security officer, Personal assistant and the sector listings, nationalcareers.service.gov.uk, nationalcareers.service.gov.uk; Information sources, nationalcareers.service.gov.uk
  9. The Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, regulations 10, 17 and 26 and Schedule 3, legislation.gov.uk, legislation.gov.uk; Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, A brief guide for agencies, June 2020, gov.uk
  10. HMRC, How VAT works: how much VAT you must charge, gov.uk; Supply of staff and staff bureaux (VAT Notice 700/34), gov.uk
  11. GOV.UK, Employment Allowance: eligibility, gov.uk; HMRC, Basic PAYE Tools, gov.uk; How to use Basic PAYE Tools, gov.uk
  12. Luxury.me, entries of the agencies and concierges named, with source and retrieval date on each entry page; overview Agencies with published fees

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