Freelance day rate UK: how to work out what to charge

To work out a freelance day rate in the UK, start with what you want to take home in a year. Add the Income Tax and National Insurance on it, plus your business costs. Then divide by the days you'll really bill, which is far fewer than 260. In the worked example below, that comes to £312 a day before VAT.

Our free day rate calculator does the sums as you move the sliders. This guide explains each number that goes into it.

Start from what you need to take home

Begin with your own costs of living for a year, not with what other freelancers charge: rent or mortgage, bills, food, travel, savings. That total is the take-home pay your business has to produce.

Two things an employer would have paid for are now yours to cover. Nobody pays into a pension for you, so add what you plan to put in. And there's no sick pay: the self-employed aren't eligible for Statutory Sick Pay, so time off has to be priced in rather than hoped for.

Count the days you can actually bill

Dividing a salary by 260 weekdays assumes you'll bill every one of them. You won't.

Employees are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, and an employer can count bank holidays towards it. Yours is unpaid, so it comes out of your billable days. So do days off sick, and the share of your time that goes on finding work, quoting, invoicing and chasing payment.

The calculator starts from these assumptions:

Six weeks covers the eight bank holidays in England and Wales, plus just over four weeks away. The 70% is a planning assumption, not a measured figure. If you're new, or most of your work comes from pitching, try lower. Then keep a note of the days you bill this year and use your real number next time.

Add tax, National Insurance and costs

As a sole trader you pay Income Tax and Class 4 National Insurance on your profit, which is your income minus allowable business expenses. Your rate has to cover that tax as well as your take-home pay.

For the 2026 to 2027 tax year, the first £12,570 of profit is covered by the Personal Allowance. The basic rate band above it is taxed at 20%. Class 4 National Insurance takes 6% of the same slice, up to £50,270. Scotland sets its own Income Tax bands, so the tax line changes there; National Insurance is the same across the UK.

Business costs are what you spend to trade: software, kit, insurance, professional fees. Our guide to allowable expenses shows what counts. Here's the whole sum for a freelancer in England:

The calculator asks for your income before tax, so enter the profit line, not the take-home. Its default also adds a 5% pension, which takes the rate a little higher.

The tax line is your set-aside too. Move that share of every payment into a separate account the day it lands, because the bill arrives in one or two lumps. Your first January bill can also include a payment on account: half of that year's tax again, paid in advance towards the next. Our guide to self-employed National Insurance covers what you pay and when, and an accountant can give you your own set-aside figure.

All of this is before VAT. If you're VAT registered, VAT goes on top of your day rate. If you trade through a limited company, the tax works differently; our guide to sole trader or limited company explains how.

Day rate, hourly rate or a project price

You can quote in three ways. Each one puts the risk of a job running over on a different side of the table.

To get an hourly rate, divide your day rate by the hours in your working day. The calculator assumes 7.5 billable hours. At that, the example's day rate works out at about £42 an hour. Hourly billing invites clients to count minutes, and it pays you less as you get faster, so set a minimum, such as half a day. Whichever you use, say in your contract how many hours make a day.

A project price starts from the same number. Estimate the days, multiply by your day rate, and add a margin for the parts you can't see yet. Write down what's included and what isn't, because that's what you point to when the job grows. Finish faster and the difference is yours; run over and so is the loss. On bigger projects, a deposit moves some of that risk back. Ongoing work can go onto a monthly retainer, priced from the same day rate.

Check it against the market

Your sum gives you a floor: the least you can charge and still meet your own numbers. The market decides how far above it you can go.

Published rate reports show whether you're in range. YunoJuno's 2026 Contractor and Freelancer Rates Report gives UK day rates by discipline, built from activity on its own platform in 2024 and 2025. It covers one marketplace, so read it as a reference point, not the going rate. Our rate guides for graphic designers, web developers and copywriters go discipline by discipline.

Then check closer to home:

• Contract job ads in your field. Many show a day rate, especially in tech.
• Freelancers a few years ahead of you. Ask what they quote, if they'll share it.
• The client's alternative. What an agency would quote, or what a hire would cost them once employer costs are added.
• How enquiries react. If every client says yes straight away, your rate's probably low.

If the market sits well above your floor, charge the market rate. If your floor is above what clients in your niche pay, change the inputs: lower costs, more billable days, or clients with bigger budgets. Charging below your floor means paying to work.

Raising your rates

Redo the sum at least once a year. Tax rates and thresholds can change each April, your costs move, and by then you'll have a year of real billable days instead of a guess.

Try a new rate on new enquiries first. If they accept without a pause, the old rate was low. If several go quiet at the same number, you've found the edge for that kind of client, and you've learned it without risking work you already have.

For existing clients, give notice in writing. A month or more is a fair courtesy, and longer on a retainer. Time it for a natural break, such as a renewal or the end of a project. Name the new rate and the date it starts, and don't apologise:

"From 1 March, the day rate for new work moves to £350. Anything already booked stays at today's rate."

Decide beforehand what you'd accept if a client pushes back, so you're not negotiating on the spot. A line in your contract saying rates are reviewed once a year makes the conversation routine.

The bottom line

Work your rate out from your own numbers: take-home pay, tax and National Insurance, costs, and the days you'll really bill. That's your floor. Check it against what your market pays, quote by the day, hour or project depending on who should carry the risk, and redo the sum every year with the day rate calculator.