The short version: teachers can earn extra money marking remotely for exam boards like AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, WJEC/Eduqas, SQA, Cambridge International and the IB, plus university coursework marking and moderation, with most seasonal marking paying between £1,000 and £3,000 for a five to six week summer window. The pay looks decent on paper but the real hourly rate often lands close to minimum wage in your first year, and AI-assisted marking is already changing which papers get offered to humans at all.
The exam boards hiring right now
If someone tells you “sign up as an examiner” without naming a board, they’ve never done it. Every board runs its own recruitment, its own portal, and its own quirks. Here’s who’s taking applications in the UK and beyond.
AQA
The biggest of the English exam boards, AQA recruits examiners every autumn for the following summer’s GCSE and A-level papers. You apply through their examiner recruitment site, they check your subject specialism and teaching experience, and if there’s demand in your subject you get invited to mark a set of sample scripts before you’re confirmed. English, maths and science subjects usually have the most openings; niche A-levels like Classical Civilisation or Music sometimes don’t recruit at all in a given year because the entry numbers are too small.
Pearson Edexcel
Runs on a similar model through its own examiner portal. Edexcel is often the board with the biggest international GCSE and A-level cohort, so if you’re a teacher based outside the UK, this is usually the easiest door in because they need markers who understand international centre entries.
OCR
Part of Cambridge Assessment. Same setup as AQA and Edexcel: online application, subject knowledge check, standardisation training, then an allocation of scripts. OCR tends to be smaller in entry volume than AQA for most subjects, which sometimes means fewer scripts but also fewer vacancies overall.
WJEC / Eduqas
The Welsh board, which also runs Eduqas qualifications used by a lot of English schools for GCSE English and Media Studies. Worth checking if AQA or OCR are full for your subject that year, because WJEC recruits separately and the pool of applicants is usually smaller.
SQA (Scotland)
If you teach in Scotland or have taught the Scottish curriculum, the SQA recruits markers for National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher papers on its own schedule, which runs slightly earlier in the year than the English boards because the exam diet finishes sooner.
Cambridge International (CIE) and the IB
Cambridge International sets IGCSE and A-level papers for schools all over the world, and it needs UK-based examiners to mark scripts sent in from centres in places like Dubai, Singapore and Kenya. The International Baccalaureate takes a slightly different route: examiners mark internal assessments and extended essays on a per-piece fee, often somewhere in the $3 to $6 range per assessment, and the work is entirely online through their examiner platform.
What the pay looks like
Nobody puts real numbers on this, so here they are, based on what markers I’ve spoken to have reported and what the boards publish in their examiner recruitment material.
- GCSE marking (English, maths, science): roughly £2.50 to £4.50 per script depending on paper length and question type.
- A-level marking, especially extended essay subjects: higher per-script rates, often £4 to £7, but each script takes longer to mark.
- A full marking season for a GCSE paper, marking 350 to 600 scripts over five to six weeks: total pay usually lands between £1,000 and £2,500.
- Team leaders and principal examiners, who quality-check other markers’ work: £3,000 to £6,000 for the season, plus extra meetings.
- Standardisation meetings (the compulsory training before you start marking): usually paid a flat fee of £50 to £150 for attending, whether online or, in rarer cases now, in person.
Here’s the bit most people leave out: those totals sound like a nice summer top-up, but the hours behind them are brutal in your first year. I mentored a retired deputy head named Sandra, 58, from Kent, through her first year as an AQA GCSE English Language examiner. She marked 380 scripts across five weeks and earned £1,400. When she logged her hours, it worked out to roughly £7 an hour once you counted every evening and both weekend days she gave up. Her second year, once she’d built speed and knew the mark scheme cold, she cut her time per script almost in half and the effective hourly rate nearly doubled. That gap between year one and year two is the part nobody tells you about before you sign up.
Other remote marking work beyond the big exam boards
Exam board marking is the most obvious route but it’s seasonal, usually just May, June and part of July. If you want remote marking income spread across the year, look at these.
- University coursework marking and moderation: many universities hire external markers for undergraduate essays, PGCE assignments and TESOL modules, usually paid per script or at an hourly rate around £15 to £25. Contact the department directly, often through a module leader you already know, rather than a general HR portal.
- Item writing and question setting: exam boards also pay experienced teachers to write new exam questions and mark schemes, usually a separate application from marking, and it pays a flat fee per item rather than per script.
- Mock exam marking for tutoring companies: several tutoring and revision companies pay qualified teachers to mark mock papers for students outside the exam season, which fills the gap between June and the following spring.
- Moderating coursework and controlled assessments: schools sometimes need external moderators for BTEC or vocational coursework, and this work is often advertised through the same exam board portals as marking.
How to apply, step by step
- Check the recruitment page for the board that runs your subject, usually opening for applications between September and January for the following summer’s exams.
- Apply online with your CV, evidence of your teaching qualification, and details of the specific specification or paper you want to mark.
- Complete a subject knowledge check, which for most boards means marking a small batch of sample scripts to a required level of accuracy before you’re confirmed.
- Attend the mandatory standardisation meeting, now almost always online, where the senior examining team walks you through the mark scheme using real sample answers.
- Receive your allocation of scripts through the board’s e-marking portal once the exam sitting has happened, usually with a submission deadline four to five weeks later.
- Mark against “seed scripts”, control scripts already marked by a senior examiner, which the system uses to check your accuracy is staying within tolerance throughout the marking window. Drift too far and you can be flagged, reduced in allocation, or in rare cases removed from the season.
The uncomfortable part nobody mentions
Exam boards, including AQA and Pearson, have been trialling AI-assisted marking on objective and short-answer questions for several years now, and Ofqual has published guidance on how AI is being used in assessment. This isn’t a rumour, it’s public. The direction of travel is clear: machine marking is already handling straightforward, single-correct-answer questions in some subjects, and the human marking that’s left is increasingly concentrated on longer, judgement-heavy extended responses, the kind that take more time and mental energy per script, not less. That means the “easy pocket money” reputation this work had ten years ago is out of date. It’s still worthwhile income, but it’s harder-earned than it used to be, and the pool of purely mechanical marking that pays well for relatively little effort is shrinking.
Who this suits
This work suits teachers with a flexible June and July, a subject with reasonable entry numbers so there’s actual demand, and the patience to get through a slow, low-paid first season while you learn to mark fast. It doesn’t suit anyone hoping for quick money with minimal time investment, or anyone who can’t commit to the deadline windows, because missing a submission date as an examiner has consequences for the board that they take seriously.
If you’re weighing up remote marking against other ways to use your subject expertise for income, like tutoring, curriculum writing, or building a small teaching-related side business, it’s worth thinking about which option matches how much time you have and how much you want to be tied to a fixed summer deadline versus year-round flexible work.
For the rest of the remote and work from home jobs questions, see my remote and work from home jobs guide.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need to be a current teacher to become an exam board examiner?
No. Most boards accept retired teachers and those with relevant subject teaching experience even if they’ve left the classroom, as long as you can show recent, relevant experience of the specification you want to mark.
How much can a teacher realistically earn marking GCSE papers over the summer?
Most GCSE markers earn between £1,000 and £2,500 for a five to six week marking window, depending on the subject and how many scripts you’re allocated, though your effective hourly rate is usually lower than you’d expect in your first year.
Can you do exam board marking from outside the UK?
Yes, boards like Cambridge International and Pearson Edexcel specifically recruit examiners for international qualifications and the marking is done entirely online, so location isn’t usually a barrier as long as your time zone allows you to attend the standardisation meeting.
Is exam marking being replaced by AI?
Not entirely, but AI-assisted marking is already being trialled by UK exam boards on short-answer and objective questions, so human marking is shifting toward longer, more judgement-based responses rather than disappearing outright.
Useful references
Related reading: What Remote Customer Service Jobs Are Available for Beginners in 2026 and Remote Job Boards: 40+ Real Sites to Find Work-From-Home Jobs in 2026.
