Private GCSE tuition in the UK typically runs between £28 and £50 an hour for one-to-one, with the national average around £38. Small group tuition is far cheaper, usually £10 to £25 per student per hour. Those are the numbers you are actually choosing between, and almost nobody puts them on their website.

That is the real difficulty with pricing tuition. It is not that it is expensive. It is that you cannot compare anything until you have rung four places and had four conversations.

Key Takeaways

• One-to-one GCSE tuition typically costs £28 to £50 an hour in the UK.

• Small group tuition typically costs £10 to £25 per student per hour.

• Monthly fees and hourly rates are not comparable until you divide one into the other.

• Registration fees, term commitments and minimum contracts change the real cost more than the headline rate.

• Our GCSE tuition is £150 a month for three hours a week, which works out at about £11.50 an hour.

Why is it so hard to find a price?

Because most centres would rather talk to you first. The logic is that once you are on the phone they can explain the value before you see the number, and there is something in that: the cheapest tuition is not automatically the best.

But it makes life difficult if you are simply trying to work out whether this is affordable before you invest an afternoon in phone calls. And it means the only prices you can easily compare are the ones from national online agencies, which are usually the most expensive option available.

If a centre will not tell you a price without a meeting, that is worth noticing. It is not necessarily a bad sign, but it is a choice they have made about who the process is designed to suit.

What does one-to-one tuition cost?

Expect £28 to £50 an hour for GCSE, with around £38 as a national average. Maths and the sciences sit at the upper end, as do tutors with formal teaching experience.

For a student having one hour a week through Year 11, that is roughly £1,100 to £2,000 across the academic year.

One-to-one is the right answer for some students. If someone has a specific gap, or real anxiety, or needs a pace nothing else can match, the individual attention earns its price. But it is worth being honest that plenty of students do not need it, and are paying for silence in the room as much as for teaching.

What does group tuition cost?

Typically £10 to £25 per student per hour, depending on group size.

The economics are straightforward: the tutor's time is shared, so the cost per student falls. The trade-off is attention, which is why group size matters enormously. A group of six is a different proposition from a group of twenty, and "small groups" means nothing until somebody gives you a number.

What good group teaching adds, which one-to-one does not, is other students. Hearing someone else ask the question you were too embarrassed to ask is genuinely useful, and so is realising you are not the only one finding a topic hard.

How to compare a monthly fee with an hourly rate

This is where most people come unstuck, and the arithmetic is simple once someone shows you.

Divide the monthly fee by the hours you actually get. A month is about 4.33 weeks, so three hours a week is roughly 13 hours a month.

• £150 a month for 3 hours a week is about £11.50 an hour

• £200 a month for 3 hours a week is about £15.40 an hour

• £200 a month for 2 hours a week is about £23 an hour

Do that for every centre you are considering and the comparison becomes obvious. Do not do it, and a £150 monthly fee can sound worse than a £30 hourly rate when it is often much better value.

Two things to ask while you are at it: how many hours a week and how many students in the group. Without both, a monthly price tells you almost nothing.

What to check that is not the price

Price is the easiest thing to compare, which is exactly why it gets over-weighted.

Who is actually teaching? Tuition centres vary enormously here. Ask whether subjects are taught by people who specialise in them.

What happens if it does not work? Most centres offer nothing. A guarantee of any kind tells you they are willing to carry some of the risk.

Is there a contract? Monthly rolling with no minimum term means the centre has to keep earning it. A term's commitment means they do not.

Are there extras? Registration fees, materials charges and exam entry costs can add a few hundred pounds to a year that looked cheaper on the headline rate.

What we charge

We publish our prices, which is unusual, and it is deliberate. You should be able to work out whether we are affordable without ringing anybody.

• KS1 & KS2 and 11+ preparation — £80 a month

• GCSE — £150 a month

• A Level — £200 a month

• Adult GCSE resits — £200 a month

• Adult A Level resits — £250 a month

GCSE, A Level and 11+ are three hours a week in small weekend groups at our centre in West Bromwich, so GCSE works out at roughly £11.50 an hour and A Level at about £15.40. There is a 30% sibling discount, no registration fee and no contract.

Students can also sit their exams on site, and we arrange the entry, so teaching and examination happen in the same building rather than being coordinated between two organisations. Our post on what it costs to sit an exam privately covers those fees separately, since they are charged by the exam boards rather than by us.

Is cheaper better?

No, and we would not argue that it is.

What we would argue is that the price should be visible, so you can weigh it against everything else rather than discovering it at the end of a sales conversation. Whether £11.50 an hour in a small group beats £38 an hour one-to-one depends entirely on the student, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

What we can say is that for most students who are broadly keeping up but underperforming in exams, small group teaching with specialist tutors does the job, and one-to-one is often more than they need.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much should I budget for GCSE tuition for a year?

At national one-to-one rates of £28 to £50 an hour, one hour a week for an academic year is roughly £1,100 to £2,000. Small group tuition typically comes in well below that. Our GCSE tuition is £1,800 for a full year at three hours a week, which is around 39 hours a term.

Is group tuition worth it compared to one-to-one?

For most students, yes. One-to-one is worth the premium where there is a specific gap, real exam anxiety, or a need to move at an unusual pace. For a student who is broadly following the course but losing marks in exams, a small group with a specialist teacher usually does the same job for a fraction of the cost.

Are there any hidden costs?

There should not be, but ask directly about registration fees, materials, and whether exam entry is included. We charge no registration fee and no materials cost. Exam entries are separate and charged per subject.

Do you offer a discount for siblings?

Yes, 30% off for siblings enrolling together.

Can I stop if it is not working?

With us, yes. Monthly rolling, no contract, cancel any time. That is not universal, so check before you commit anywhere.

Working it out

If you take one thing from this, make it the arithmetic. Monthly fee, divided by hours per month, gives you a number you can actually compare. Then ask about group size, who teaches, and what happens if it does not work.

If you are in West Bromwich, Sandwell, Birmingham or the wider Black Country and want to talk it through, get in touch. We will tell you honestly whether we think we can help, and what is realistic in the time available.

Sources

• Tutoring rate estimates are drawn from published UK tutoring guides and are indicative ranges rather than official statistics. Retrieved 2026-09-07.

• TutorLab, Private tutor rates UK, https://www.tutorlab.uk/research/private-tutor-rates-uk

• Atom Learning, The costs of private tutoring, https://www.atomlearning.com/blog/private-tutor-costs