Straight answer: most people tutoring online part time in the UK take home somewhere between £150 and £600 a month after platform fees, with specialist subjects (further maths, sciences, 11+, Oxbridge admissions) pushing well past that. The “£2,000 a month working evenings” claims you see on Facebook are technically possible but rare, and they skip the fees, the no-shows, and the tax bill.
Worth reading next: How a Virtual Assistant Side Hustle Fits Around a Full-Time Job.
Worth reading next: How to Find Legitimate Online Part-Time Jobs for Students in 2026.
The numbers I see, not the ones in the adverts
I get asked about this in my newsletter replies more than almost anything else. Everyone wants a clean answer: “how much can I make tutoring two evenings a week.” So a while back I sat down with the actual figures alongside Claire, a woman I mentor who tutors GCSE maths from her kitchen table in Bristol, three evenings a week, on Tutorful.
Claire charges £28 an hour. She teaches three students, one hour each, three evenings a week. That’s nine hours a week, roughly 36 a month. Before fees that’s £1,008. After Tutorful’s commission, which slides down the more hours you log with the same student (starting higher on new bookings and dropping the longer a relationship runs), she loses somewhere between 8% and 15% depending on the student. Call it £120 to £150 taken off. Then two lessons that month got cancelled with less than 24 hours notice and she wasn’t paid for either, because that’s standard across most platforms. Her actual take-home for the month: about £790.
That’s a good result. Claire has been doing this for two years, has reviews, and teaches a subject in constant demand. A brand new tutor with no reviews yet, charging £16 to £18 an hour to get their first bookings, working the same nine hours, is realistically clearing £400 to £550 a month once fees and gaps in the booking calendar are factored in.
What the different platforms pay
Rates and cuts vary more than people expect, and this is the bit worth checking before you build your whole plan around one site.
- MyTutor pays UK tutors roughly £15 to £30 an hour for GCSE and A-level subjects, with the platform taking a percentage that’s higher on your very first lessons with a student and lower once you’ve built a relationship with them.
- Tutorful is free to sign up to but takes a sliding commission similar to the above, typically landing in the 8% to 15% range once you’re established with regular students.
- Superprof works differently again. Tutors pay a yearly subscription (around £39) to appear in search results but keep 100% of whatever they charge, negotiated directly with the family. This suits tutors who already have a following or referrals, less so if you need the platform to find you students.
- Preply takes a much bigger bite on new tutors, often around 30% to 33% on your first lessons with a student, dropping to somewhere near 18% once your lifetime earnings on the platform cross a few thousand pounds.
None of this is hidden exactly, it’s in the terms, but almost nobody reads the terms before they list themselves. If you’re weighing up which platform to build your hours around, it’s worth reading how to check whether an online tutor job in the UK is legit before you hand over a DBS certificate and a bank account number to a site you found through a Google ad.
The uncomfortable bit nobody adds to the maths
Here’s the part most of these guides leave out. Your quoted hourly rate is not your real hourly rate. A one-hour GCSE lesson usually needs 15 to 30 minutes of preparation the first few times you teach a new topic, marking or reviewing homework between sessions, and messaging parents to reschedule around half-term and mock exam weeks. Claire reckons her real hourly rate, once you divide her monthly take-home by all the hours she spends on tutoring including admin, sits closer to £19 an hour than the £28 she quotes.
Then there’s the money going out before any comes in. A basic DBS check costs £25 to £54 depending on the type, most platforms won’t let you teach children without one, and you’ll typically pay for it yourself upfront. If you want your own website or booking page separate from the platforms, that’s another cost. None of this is huge money, but if you’re weighing tutoring against other side hustles, it’s worth knowing this isn’t quite the zero-cost start some people promise. For a wider comparison of what needs money upfront and what doesn’t, this piece on making money online without upfront investment is a fair reality check.
The other thing people avoid saying out loud: demand isn’t evenly spread. Core GCSE English and maths tutoring has got more crowded and slightly cheaper since 2023, partly because AI tools now handle a lot of the basic homework help that used to justify a £20 tutor. Where rates have gone up is specialist and exam-specific work: 11+ and grammar school entrance prep, A-level further maths, science practicals, university admissions and personal statement coaching, and English as an additional language support for adults. Tutors in those niches routinely charge £45 to £90 an hour on Superprof and through direct referrals, sometimes more in London.
A realistic step-by-step for starting this month
If you want to try this rather than just read about it, here’s the order that works.
- Pick one subject and one age group you can teach without hesitation, not three subjects spread thin. Specificity gets booked faster than a generalist profile.
- Get your DBS check sorted first. It takes one to three weeks to come back and most platforms won’t let you go live without it.
- Price your first five lessons about 20% below what you eventually want to charge. Reviews matter more early on than margin.
- Set up a simple way to manage bookings and reschedules before you have more than two or three regular students, because juggling this by text gets messy fast. Worth reading how to pick the right online booking tool even for something this small, since a free calendar link saves you a lot of back-and-forth.
- Once you have five genuine reviews, raise your rate by £3 to £5 and see if bookings slow down. If they don’t, raise it again in three months.
- Keep a simple spreadsheet from day one: hours taught, fee taken, amount paid out. You need this for your tax return regardless, and it stops you kidding yourself about what you’re really earning.
Tax, National Insurance, and the paperwork bit
Tutoring income counts as self-employment in the eyes of HMRC the moment you earn over £1,000 in a tax year from it, trading allowance aside. You’ll need to register for Self Assessment, keep records of every payment and platform fee, and put roughly 20% to 30% of what you earn aside if you’re also employed elsewhere, since your tax band and any Class 2 or Class 4 National Insurance depend on your total income across both. This is the part that trips people up most, because the platform pays you the net amount after their commission, and it’s easy to forget that HMRC still wants tax on that net figure, not the gross rate you originally quoted the family.
Where tutoring sits against other part-time online income
I get asked to compare tutoring against freelance writing, virtual assistant work, and reselling, and honestly tutoring holds up well against most of them for one reason: it’s one of the few part-time online options where your hourly rate goes up with experience rather than staying flat. A VA doing admin at £12 an hour two years in is often still charging £12 an hour. A tutor with two years and forty reviews is usually charging 40% to 60% more than they started at. If you’re weighing this against faster but shallower options, this comparison of what works when you need money fast online is a useful gut check, because tutoring is not a fast option. It’s a compounding one. Your first month will look unimpressive. Month eight, with returning students and referrals, looks nothing like month one.
If you’re brand new to earning online generally and tutoring is just one option on a list, it’s worth reading a broader look at the fastest realistic way to start earning extra income online before you commit your evenings to one platform specifically.
So what should you expect?
Part time, three to eight hours a week, teaching a mainstream subject like GCSE maths or English through a platform: expect £250 to £600 a month once fees, cancellations, and tax setting-aside are accounted for, rising as your reviews build. Teaching a specialist subject, entrance exam prep, or working direct with families outside a platform once you’ve got a reputation: £600 to £1,500 a month for similar hours is realistic, and I know tutors in London specialising in Oxbridge admissions coaching who clear more than that from six hours a week. What it isn’t, for almost anyone in year one, is a reliable £2,000 a month for a couple of evenings’ work. Anyone promising that figure upfront is selling you the platform, not the reality of the job.
Related reading: How much do you charge?.
Frequently asked questions
How much do UK online tutors get paid per hour?
Most GCSE and A-level tutors charge £18 to £35 an hour on platforms like Tutorful and MyTutor, with specialist subjects and exam prep, particularly 11+ and university admissions coaching, reaching £45 to £90 an hour. Platform commission of roughly 8% to 33% comes off before you’re paid, depending on the site and how long you’ve taught the student.
Do you need a teaching qualification to tutor online in the UK?
No formal teaching qualification is legally required to tutor privately in the UK, though most platforms ask for evidence of relevant education, such as a degree in the subject or a good exam grade in it yourself, plus a DBS check if you’re working with under-18s.
Is online tutoring taxable income in the UK?
Yes. Once your tutoring income goes over £1,000 in a tax year, you need to register for Self Assessment and declare it, even though platforms usually pay you the amount already net of their commission. Setting aside 20% to 30% of what you’re paid is a sensible habit from your very first lesson.
Which online tutoring platform pays the most in the UK?
Superprof lets tutors keep 100% of their agreed fee after a small annual subscription, which pays best if you can find your own students. Among the commission-based sites, Tutorful and MyTutor tend to take a smaller cut than Preply once you’ve built a track record with regular students.
Related reading: Online Tutoring Jobs From Home: What They Pay and How to Get Started Fast and How to Earn Passive Income: The Complete Guide to What Builds It (And What Wastes Your Time).
