Published guides put a year of home-based 11+ preparation at roughly £350 to £600, and a year of weekly one-to-one tuition at roughly £3,000 to £5,000, with competitive routes running higher. Registration fees, mock exams, materials and travel add several hundred pounds on top. Independent school fees then follow if a place is won, and the average senior day fee in the Independent Schools Council census is £6,492 per term before VAT. Almost every preparation figure below comes from a tutoring business, so treat the numbers as guides, not measurements.
This article covers England. Other UK nations use different systems, and the figures here should not be carried across to them.
Why is it so hard to give one cost figure?
Three things move the total, and a family only controls some of them.
The first is how many exams a child sits. A child who prepares for the 10+, carries on into the 11+ and then sits independent school papers is paying for a longer run of preparation than a child who sits one test. No source we found prices that full sequence as a single package, so any total for it has to be built from separate pieces. We have done that below and labelled our own arithmetic.
The second is where the family lives. Tutor rates in London and the South East are consistently quoted above those in other regions.
The third is how the preparation is delivered. Workbooks, an online platform, small-group teaching and one-to-one tuition sit at very different price points.
What do tutors charge per hour?
Rates vary by source, by region and by tutor experience. The table shows what each published guide reports.
| Source | Type of rate | Approximate range per hour |
|---|---|---|
| Atom Learning (2026) | UK general range | £40 to £80 (average £55) |
| Atom Learning (2026) | London and South East | £60 to £80 (specialists £80 to £120) |
| Atom Learning (2026) | Birmingham, Trafford, Lincolnshire | £40 to £60 |
| Leading Tuition (2026a) | UK-wide one-to-one | £40 to £90 |
| Leading Tuition (2026a) | London and South East specialists | £60 to £120+ |
| Leading Tuition (2026a) | Group tuition | £20 to £40 |
| Leading Tuition (2026b) | Surrey and the South East, by experience | £30 to £45, £45 to £70, £70 to £100+ |
| Leading Tuition (2026b) | Small group of two to four children | £20 to £35 per child |
| Cognito (2026) | Top London specialists | £68 to £90+ |
The guides do not agree exactly, which is normal for commercial price surveys that sample different providers. The overlap is the useful part. Most sources place a typical one-to-one 11+ tutor somewhere between about £40 and £90 an hour outside London, with specialist tutors in London and the South East reaching higher. One guide notes that online tuition costs 10 to 20 per cent less than in-person tuition (Leading Tuition, 2026b). Another warns that rates below about £30 an hour can signal limited experience of the 11+ format (Leading Tuition, 2026a). Both statements come from a tutoring company, so they are worth checking rather than accepting.
What does a year of preparation add up to?
The sources give whole-programme figures as well as hourly rates. These are the most useful numbers for planning, because they include the choices families actually make.
| Approach | Approximate cost | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Home preparation with books and practice papers | £350 to £600 a year | Atom Learning (2026) |
| Workbooks only | £320 to £550 a year | Cognito (2026) |
| Online platform | £135 to £270 a year | Cognito (2026) |
| Small-group tutor plus platform | £1,080 to £2,250 a year | Cognito (2026) |
| Weekly one-to-one tuition, standard | £2,475 to £4,500 a year | Cognito (2026) |
| Weekly one-to-one tuition, realistic all-in | £3,000 to £5,000 a year | Atom Learning (2026) |
| Extended or highly competitive preparation | £4,500 to £7,200 a year | Cognito (2026) |
| Extended or highly competitive preparation | £5,000 to £8,000 a year | Atom Learning (2026) |
Atom Learning (2026) gives a worked example for context. One hour a week over a 12-month programme, about 50 sessions, comes to approximately £2,750. That is the same arithmetic as an hourly rate of £55 multiplied by 50, so it sits inside the ranges above.
Regional figures follow the same pattern. Atom Learning (2026) estimates weekly tutoring at £3,000 to £4,500 or more a year in London and the South East, £2,500 to £3,500 in Buckinghamshire, Kent and Essex, and £2,000 to £3,000 in Birmingham, Trafford and Lincolnshire.
What changes when a child prepares for more than one exam?
Leading Tuition (2026a) publishes the nearest thing to a full-sequence budget. It sets out a two-year preparation period of 60 to 70 hours and puts the total at £2,600 to £5,850. It then describes three profiles.
| Profile | Approximate two-year cost |
|---|---|
| Light-touch or self-study | £150 to £600 |
| Typical weekly one-to-one tutoring | £3,000 to £7,050 |
| Intensive preparation for several independent schools | £8,000 to £11,000+ |
Two years is the length of preparation a child might have if they start before a 10+ sitting in Year 5 and finish with an 11+ sitting in Year 6. A child who then continues into independent entrance papers may be preparing for longer, and the sources do not price that extension separately. The cost of a longer run can reasonably be expected to rise with the hours, but no source gives a figure for it, so we have not invented one.
Article 2 in this series looks at how preparation hours can pile up when exams overlap. More hours at the same hourly rate means a higher bill. That is simple arithmetic and not a finding from a study.
What are the costs that sit around tuition?
Tuition is the biggest line, but it is not the only one. The guides list the following.
| Item | Approximate cost | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Books and materials | £60 to £150 | Leading Tuition (2026a) |
| Books, practice tests over the programme | £100 to £300 | Leading Tuition (2026b) |
| Mock exams | £15 to £40 per sitting (£120 to £480 across a programme) | Leading Tuition (2026a) |
| Mock exam at an exam centre | £60 per subject, £120 for two papers | 11 Plus London (n.d.) |
| Independent school registration | £150 to £220 per school | Leading Tuition (2026a) |
| Educational psychologist assessment, if access arrangements are needed | £400 to £750 | Leading Tuition (2026a) |
| Travel to open days and interviews | £50 to £300 | Leading Tuition (2026a) |
The mock exam figures show how far prices can differ. A sitting at £15 to £40 and a paper at £60 per subject are both described as mock exams. The second includes a written feedback report with a score and a percentile ranking (11 Plus London, n.d.), so the two are not the same product.
Registration fees matter most for a multi-exam route. For illustration, a child who registers with three independent schools at £150 to £220 each would pay £450 to £660 in registration alone. Add the lower and upper ends of materials, mocks and travel from the Leading Tuition (2026a) ranges and the extras come to roughly £680 to £1,590 for the year. That total is our own arithmetic, built on an assumption of three registrations, and it does not include tuition.
The sources we reviewed did not give a consistent figure for state grammar school test registration. Admissions arrangements differ between areas, so families should check each school's published process for any charge.
What do independent school fees look like once a place is offered?
The Independent Schools Council census, taken in January 2026, reports average day fees per term of £6,226 across all schools, £5,766 for junior schools and £6,492 for senior schools. Boarding fees average £14,980 per term overall and £14,735 at senior level. All of these exclude VAT (Independent Schools Council, 2026), which means the bill a family sees will be higher.
Multiplying by three terms gives our own estimate of roughly £19,500 a year for an average senior day place and about £44,200 a year for senior boarding, both before VAT. These are averages across the sector and say nothing about any individual school.
The same census reports that 183,705 pupils, 34.9 per cent of all pupils in its member schools, received fee assistance, with a total value of £2.1 billion. It also reports that 8,934 pupils pay no fees at all (Independent Schools Council, 2026). Those figures cover member schools of one body and should not be read as a promise that assistance is available at any particular school. Families who may need it should ask each school about bursary criteria and deadlines early, since applications often run alongside entrance exams.
How common is paid tuition, and does it vary by place and income?
The Sutton Trust polled young people about private tuition in 2019. It found that 27 per cent of 11 to 16 year olds in England and Wales had received private tuition at some point. The figure rose to 41 per cent in London. Young people from high-affluence households (34 per cent) were more likely than those from low-affluence households (20 per cent) to have had tuition (Sutton Trust, 2019).
That poll covers all private tuition for ages 11 to 16, not 11+ preparation specifically, and it is now several years old. It is useful context for the price guides above, which also quote higher tutor rates in London and the South East.
What should education professionals bear in mind when families ask about cost?
Teachers, school leaders and advisers are often asked whether tuition is necessary. The evidence we have reviewed cannot answer that. The cost sources are commercial, and the published guides price the options without measuring which of them improves results. A few points are safe to make.
- A wide range of costs exists, from a few hundred pounds a year to several thousand, so there is no single figure to quote.
- The cheaper end of each range is a real option that the guides themselves describe, including home preparation with workbooks and practice papers.
- Costs rise with the number of exams a child sits, because registration, mocks and tuition hours all repeat.
- Families benefit from hearing the full run of costs early, including the fees that follow a successful independent school application.
Some families will want to talk through cost alongside the effort and anxiety involved. Article 2 covers effort, and Article 4 covers anxiety.
How can families keep costs in view?
Four habits help, and none of them requires a particular budget.
- Write down the full sequence of exams the child is likely to sit before choosing a spending level, so that later costs are not a surprise.
- Ask every provider what is included. A mock exam, a tutoring package or an online platform can each mean very different things at the same headline price.
- Price the extras separately, namely registration, mocks, materials and travel, and add them to the tuition figure.
- Check any figure against the school's or exam board's own published fees before paying, since the guides above are secondary sources.
Frequently asked questions
How much does 11+ tutoring cost in England?
Published guides put typical one-to-one tutoring at about £40 to £90 an hour, with a year of weekly sessions costing roughly £2,475 to £5,000, and higher for competitive routes (Atom Learning, 2026; Cognito, 2026; Leading Tuition, 2026a).
Can a child prepare without a tutor?
The guides price home preparation with books and practice papers at about £320 to £600 a year (Atom Learning, 2026; Cognito, 2026). They do not measure how results compare with tutored preparation.
What extra costs should families expect?
Books and materials, mock exams, registration fees for independent schools, travel to open days, and in some cases an educational psychologist assessment (Leading Tuition, 2026a).
Does preparing for the 10+, 11+ and independent exams cost more than one exam?
Probably, because more preparation hours and more registrations add up, but no source prices the full sequence as one package. Leading Tuition (2026a) gives a two-year range of £2,600 to £5,850 as the closest guide.
How much are independent school fees?
The Independent Schools Council census reports an average senior day fee of £6,492 per term and an average senior boarding fee of £14,735 per term, both excluding VAT (Independent Schools Council, 2026).
Is financial help available?
The same census reports that 34.9 per cent of pupils in member schools received fee assistance (Independent Schools Council, 2026). Availability depends on each school.
Check every figure before you rely on it
Prices change, and the sources above were published between February and August 2026, apart from the 2019 poll. Treat every number as an approximate range and confirm it with the provider or school. Where two sources disagree, we have shown both. Where a figure is our own arithmetic, we have said so.
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Sources
Atom Learning (2026) 11 plus tutoring cost. Published 27 August 2026. Available at: https://www.atomlearning.com/blog/11-plus-tutoring-cost (Accessed: 6 October 2026).
Cognito (2026) How much does 11+ tutoring cost in 2026? Honest breakdown. Published 23 February 2026. Available at: https://cognito.org/blog/11-plus-tutoring-cost-breakdown (Accessed: 6 October 2026).
Independent Schools Council (2026) ISC Census 2026. Available at: https://www.isc.co.uk/media/5rmduu0j/2026-06-isc-census-2026.pdf (Accessed: 6 October 2026).
Leading Tuition (2026a) What 11+ preparation actually costs end to end: a worked two-year budget. Published July 2026. Available at: https://www.leadingtuition.co.uk/blog/what-11-preparation-actually-costs-end-to-end (Accessed: 6 October 2026).
Leading Tuition (2026b) How much does 11+ tutoring cost? Published May 2026. Available at: https://www.leadingtuition.co.uk/blog/how-much-does-11-plus-tutoring-cost (Accessed: 6 October 2026).
11 Plus London (n.d.) Mock exams. Available at: https://11pluslondon.co.uk/mock-exams (Accessed: 6 October 2026).
Sutton Trust (2019) Private tuition polling 2019. Published 25 September 2019. Available at: https://www.suttontrust.com/research-paper/private-tuition-polling-2019/ (Accessed: 6 October 2026).