How Much Should I Budget for an 11+ Tutor?

Tutor costs for 11+ preparation vary more widely than most parents expect. Location, experience, format, and whether sessions are online or in-person all affect the price significantly. Here's a realistic picture of what you're likely to encounter in 2025/26.

At the lower end of the market, less experienced tutors, including university students and recently qualified teachers, typically charge between £25 and £45 per hour. Established 11+ specialists with a track record of successful placements generally sit in the £50 to £80 range. In London and the commuter belt, expect to add roughly 20 to 40 per cent to those figures: demand is high and supply of genuinely experienced specialists is not infinite. Online tutoring runs around 10 to 20 per cent cheaper than in-person sessions, and quality varies just as much as face-to-face. Group tutoring, typically two to six children at once, costs around £15 to £30 per child per hour, and for children who don't need intensive one-to-one support it can be nearly as effective.

On frequency, once a week in Year 5 is the most common pattern. Some families start fortnightly if they're beginning early and their child is already performing well. In the final term of Year 6, particularly the six to eight weeks before the exam, some parents increase to twice weekly, though whether this provides enough extra benefit to justify the cost and pressure is genuinely debatable. More sessions aren't automatically better if a child is already well-prepared and the sessions are being used for general drilling.

On the total numbers: 18 months of weekly tutoring at £50 per hour works out to approximately £3,600. At £65 per hour the same period costs around £4,700. These figures are before any additional materials, past papers, or resources. It's a meaningful sum, and it's worth thinking clearly about what you're paying for.

The best tutors earn their fee through three things: detailed knowledge of your specific exam board, the ability to identify and close individual gaps efficiently, and reliable accountability that keeps a child on track week to week. Not every tutor delivers all three, but some are strong on subject knowledge while vague on the particular demands of GL or CEM; others are personable and consistent but not especially systematic. Before committing, ask directly: how familiar are you with this exam board? How do you identify what a child needs to work on? How do you keep parents informed of progress? The clarity and specificity of the answers tells you a lot.

There are a few ways to get more from your budget without reducing the quality of preparation. Starting earlier at lower intensity, once a fortnight from Year 4 rather than twice a week from January of Year 6, spreads the cost and tends to produce more durable learning. Using a daily practice platform between sessions means the tutor's weekly hour can focus on targeted intervention rather than general drilling the platform would handle automatically. That makes each session go further and keeps your child's skills sharp between appointments. Onzely costs £9.99 a month , a fraction of a single tutoring session, and handles the daily practice that underpins everything else.

A few red flags when hiring. A tutor who isn't familiar with your specific exam board is a significant problem: GL and CEM are genuinely different, and preparation that ignores format will leave gaps. Equally, a tutor who can't explain their plan for your child, or who is reluctant to provide progress updates, isn't giving you enough to go on. Tutoring is a real investment. It's reasonable to expect transparency in return.