How much to charge as a freelance web developer or web designer in the UK

A freelance web developer in the UK typically charges around £500 a day for contract work. That's the median day rate in front-end and full-stack contracts advertised over the six months to 20 October 2026, tracked by IT Jobs Watch. The middle half of full-stack adverts ran from £425 to £575.

Web design for small businesses works differently. It's mostly sold at a fixed price per site, and no independent UK survey tracks those prices. The useful answer there is a method: your day rate, times the days the site will take, plus a buffer. Which of the two markets you're in decides how you price.

What UK web developers charge right now

Two current sources measure different things. IT Jobs Watch reports the median of day rates quoted in UK contract adverts for front-end, full-stack, UI design and WordPress roles. YunoJuno's 2026 Contractor and Freelancer Rates Report, published in June 2026, averages bookings made on its own platform across 2024 and 2025.

Neither column is a going rate. Adverts show what clients offer, and bookings show what one platform's clients agreed, so read the gap between them as the range.

The plain titles web developer and web designer barely show up in contract adverts. IT Jobs Watch found 13 quoted day rates for the first and one for the second, which is too few to call a rate. Most web design is bought by the site instead.

What moves you up or down the range

Seniority moves it a lot. In YunoJuno's software engineering figures, midweight engineers averaged £476 a day and senior engineers £604. For UX and UI work the climb keeps going past senior, from £335 at midweight to £546 at lead.

So does the stack. Adverts citing WordPress had a lower median than front-end and full-stack roles. YunoJuno says skills in modern JavaScript frameworks sit at the higher end of its engineering range.

London matters less than you'd think. Outside London, front-end adverts had a median of £525, above the UK-wide figure. Full-stack adverts outside London came in a little under it.

Who owns the code. As a freelancer you're the first owner of the copyright in code you write, under section 11 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The client gets only what your contract hands over, and handing over everything is worth more than a licence to use it. Price it that way.

Your floor comes from your own numbers

Your floor is the lowest rate that still pays your way. It's the money you want to take home, plus your business costs and the tax you'll owe, divided by the days you can actually bill. For a developer, the costs include the laptop and test devices, software subscriptions, your own hosting and insurance.

Billable days are the number people get wrong. Holiday, illness, quoting, admin and chasing invoices all come out of the year before you bill a single day. The free day rate calculator does the sum, and how to price your freelance work walks through the method. If your floor lands above the market figures, something in your costs or your work has to change.

For small jobs, divide your day rate by the hours in your working day and set a minimum charge. A ten-minute fix still costs you the email, the login and the invoice.

Contract work and the IR35 question

On agency contracts the day rate is usually set before you see it, and IR35 decides what it's worth. The rules only apply if you work through your own limited company or another intermediary, so a sole trader invoicing in their own name is outside them. Under HMRC's guidance, the client decides your status for each contract and should give you a status determination statement with its reasons. If the client is a small business outside the public sector, your own company decides instead. Inside IR35 the fee is taxed much like a salary, so an inside day rate and an outside one aren't the same money. Compare them after tax. The free IR35 checker tells you whether the rules can apply to you at all.

Small-business sites or agency subcontracting

Working direct for a small business, you're the whole team. You scope the job, chase the content, manage the feedback and explain why the launch moved. None of that gets paid unless the quote carries more than the build days.

Subcontracting for a digital agency is the opposite trade. The agency finds the client, runs the account and pays you less per day than it charges, because it carries the sales and the risk. You get steadier work and less admin. In return you're one step away from the client and paid on the agency's timetable, so agree payment terms in writing before you start.

You can mix the two: agency days for a steady base, direct clients where the margin is.

Pricing a website at a fixed price

A fixed price is a day-rate estimate the client doesn't see. Break the site into parts: design, the templates you'll build, content loading, integrations such as booking or payments, testing across devices, launch. Estimate the days for each, multiply by your day rate, then add a buffer. Eight days at £400, for example, is £3,200 before the buffer.

Count templates, not pages. A twenty-page site built on three templates can take less time than a five-page site where every page is different. What usually grows a quote: a shop, moving content from an old site, custom integrations, and copy the client hasn't written yet.

Offer two or three versions instead of one number, say a ready-made theme, a custom design, and a custom design with a shop. The client then picks a scope instead of asking for a discount. Write down what each includes, how many rounds of changes, and what counts as extra.

Take part of the fee up front and the rest at milestones, such as design sign-off and launch. A deposit covers the days you spend before the client has paid anything. Track your time on fixed-price jobs too, so you learn whether your estimates hold. HelloNoa's page for developers shows how tracked hours turn into invoices.

Maintenance, hosting and third-party costs

Price maintenance as its own product. A monthly retainer usually covers updates, backups, security patches and a capped number of hours for small changes. Bill at the start of the month and charge for anything above the cap. The retainer guide covers the terms.

For a business client, the law implies that you'll do the work with reasonable care and skill. It doesn't promise bug-free code, so any free fix window after launch is one you agreed. Name its length, and say what counts as a defect and what counts as a change.

Hosting, domains and plugin or theme licences are usually the client's costs. The simplest set-up puts the accounts in the client's name and on their card, with access for you, so nothing lapses if you part ways. If you pay for them, put each cost on its own invoice line. If you're VAT registered, HMRC treats a cost as a disbursement, with no VAT added, only if it meets every condition, including passing on the exact amount. Add a margin and it becomes part of your own charge. Reselling hosting inside a care plan works too, as long as the quote says so.

The bottom line

For contract development, around £500 a day is the advertised middle of the UK market, and seniority and stack decide where you sit. For websites sold to small businesses there's no market figure worth quoting, so build the price from your own floor and an honest count of the days. Either way, know your floor before the first call and put the scope and the deposit in writing.