How much to charge as a freelance videographer or video editor in the UK

For a day editing online or promo content, Bectu's latest published rate card sets £435 as the minimum for an editor with three or more years' experience. For a commercials shoot, the Advertising Producers Association recommends £529 to £656 a day for a camera operator. Both figures pay for your time alone. Kit, travel and overtime go on top.

Weddings, events, brand films and social edits for small businesses have no published UK rate. For those, you start from your own floor and price the job.

What the published UK rates say

Two bodies publish figures for video freelancers. Bectu, the screen industries union, publishes rate cards set by its freelance branches after consulting members. The Advertising Producers Association (APA) publishes recommended crew rates for commercials, as part of terms agreed with Bectu.

Read the Bectu figures as floors. The short-form card and the factual and entertainment card both say they're the minimum for your first time in a role, and to negotiate up after that. Both are the 2023 to 2025 editions, still the latest on Bectu's site. The APA rates took effect in September 2026 and give a minimum and a maximum for each grade.

The wedding figure is the average couple's spend on a videographer in Bridebook's 2026 UK Wedding Report: the whole film, shoot and edit together, not a day rate. We found no published UK survey for corporate, event or social work.

Shoot days and edit days are different products

A commercials shoot day under the APA terms is 10 working hours plus an unpaid hour for lunch, counted from call time. An edit day on Bectu's short-form card is eight hours plus lunch. Quote them as separate lines with separate rates. The edit is where unpaid hours pile up, so it needs its own number.

None of the cards sets a half-day rate. They price whole days and weeks, and the APA uses minimum calls instead: a day spent only travelling pays at least five hours. A half-day shoot usually costs you the whole day, so price it well above half your day rate or set a minimum booking and keep to it.

Day rate or a price per finished minute

Some clients ask for a price per finished minute. No UK body publishes one, and a minute can take an hour or a fortnight depending on the footage and the rounds of changes. Per-minute pricing only works once you know your own ratio from past jobs.

Build every quote from days instead, then present it as a fixed price. Count the shoot days, edit days and any grading or motion graphics, multiply by your rates, and add kit. For short-form social edits, do this once for a typical batch, such as a month of reels, and turn it into a package with a set number of edits and revision rounds. Bectu's short-form card covers work under 15 minutes long, so it's the closest benchmark here.

Charge kit separately

Bectu's Camera Branch is blunt about this. Its 2025 rate card lists labour only and tells crew to keep labour apart from equipment hire. If you have to give a discount, keep your labour rate on the invoice and discount the kit. Its reason: a production that tops up a low labour rate with kit fees has a record of you accepting the low rate, and can point to it next time.

Editors get the same split: Bectu's short-form card adds a daily hire line for a basic laptop and monitor. If you shoot on your own camera, lenses, lights and sound, list them as one kit line priced per day.

Overtime, travel and the other extras

Say in the quote when overtime starts and what it costs. On Bectu's short-form card, editor overtime is time and a half after eight hours plus lunch, agreed before it's worked. Under the APA terms, shoot overtime starts 11 hours after call time, and your hourly rate for working it out is a tenth of your day rate.

Travel is the other leak. The APA pays mileage outside the M25 and pays travel time at the basic hourly rate. Bectu's editors' card leaves travel, accommodation and per diems out of the estimate unless asked for. Put mileage, travel time, accommodation and late finishes in your terms before the job is confirmed.

What moves your rate up or down

• Experience. Bectu's short-form card moves you from junior editor to editor at three years, and leaves senior editors to negotiate their own rate.
• The client. On Bectu's card the same editor earns a higher minimum on a TV commercial than on online promo.
• Specialism. Grading, motion graphics, drone work and location sound all add to the day. Bectu's card adds a daily supplement for basic After Effects skills.
• Usage. A film that runs as a paid ad is worth more than one on an About page. If you license the footage rather than hand over the rights, price the licence by time, territory and media.
• Location. None of these cards sets a separate London rate. In your quote, location mostly shows up as travel.

Work out your floor first

Rate cards tell you what the market pays, not what you need. Your floor comes from the income you want, your business costs and the days you can actually bill. Kit makes this matter more in video, because cameras, lenses, drives, software and insurance all come out of those days.

The day rate calculator has a Photographer quick start that assumes higher business costs and fewer billable days than the desk trades. Pick it, swap in your own figures, and you get the day rate you can't go below. If a card rate sits under your floor, that kind of work doesn't pay you at that price. The full method is in how to price your freelance work.

Put it in a quote the client can say yes to

A video quote that reads as one number invites haggling over the whole thing. Break it into parts a client recognises: shoot days, edit days, kit, travel, and any grading or graphics. Say how many revision rounds are included and what another round costs. Put extras, such as a second camera or a cut-down for social, on their own priced lines. Our page for photographers and filmmakers covers the rest of the paperwork for shoot-based work.

Then protect the date. A booked shoot day blocks out other work, so ask for a deposit to hold it, and add a cancellation scale. The APA's runs from half the fee at six days' notice to the full fee the day before. Wedding couples are consumers, and the CMA's guidance on unfair contract terms covers what you can keep, so take advice before calling a deposit non-refundable.

The bottom line

Use the published cards as a check, not a price: Bectu for editing, the APA for commercials crew. Work out your own floor with the calculator, then quote shoot days, edit days and kit as separate lines, with overtime, travel and revisions written down. When a client pushes back, discount the kit and keep your day rate.