How much does home care cost?
Privately arranged visiting care usually costs around £20 to £25 an hour in 2026, and a live-in carer starts at roughly £800 a week. What moves the price is the type of care, the number of hours, where you live and who provides it.
The short answer
Most families paying for care themselves are quoted somewhere between £20 and £25 for an hour of visiting care. The NHS puts the typical rate at around £20 an hour; Age UK puts privately arranged care at home at around £25. Both are averages, and both come with the same warning: it varies a lot by area and by what the person actually needs. A short, straightforward morning visit sits at the lower end; complex care, or visits at awkward times, sits higher.
Live-in care is priced differently. Instead of an hourly rate you pay a weekly fee, which the NHS puts at from around £800 a week, rising to about £1,600 for someone who needs a lot of support. That sounds like a lot until you compare it with the cost of several long visits a day, every day, which is where live-in care often works out as the more sensible buy.
What home care costs in 2026
| What you're paying for | Usually charged as | Typical figure (England, 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Visiting care, arranged privately | Per hour | Around £20–£25 an hour |
| Live-in care | Per week | From around £800, up to about £1,600 for high needs |
| The real cost of delivering one safe hour of homecare | Per hour, minimum | £34.42 (Homecare Association, 2026/27) |
| What councils pay on average | Per hour | About £25 — below the minimum above |
| National Living Wage (the biggest single cost in a rate) | Per hour, from April 2026 | £12.71 |
Sources: NHS, "Paying for your own care (self-funding)" (nhs.uk, reviewed 17 April 2026) — typical £20 an hour, live-in care £800–£1,600 a week; Age UK, "How much does care cost?" (ageuk.org.uk, updated 19 August 2026) — around £25 an hour; Homecare Association, "A Minimum Price for Homecare 2026/27, England" (homecareassociation.org.uk, December 2025); National Living Wage from April 2026, GOV.UK.
Why two providers quote different prices
Location is the biggest factor. Rates in London and the South East run well above the national average; rural areas can be dearer too, because carers spend longer driving between calls. The type of care matters next: help from a carer trained in dementia or end of life care costs more than a straightforward visit, and nursing tasks that need a registered nurse are in a different bracket again.
Then there's timing. Early mornings, evenings, weekends and bank holidays are often charged at a higher rate, so a package built around those hours costs more than the headline figure suggests. The length of each visit counts as well. A 15-minute call isn't a quarter of the price of an hour, because the carer still has to travel to the door; many good providers won't offer very short visits at all, as there isn't time to do the job properly.
Finally, ask what the rate includes. Some quotes cover mileage, insurance and cover for when your regular carer is off; cheaper ones sometimes don't, and the extras appear later. A rate that looks like a bargain is worth a second look.
Visiting care or live-in care: which costs less?
For a few hours of help a day, visiting care is almost always cheaper. The sum changes once someone needs support morning, noon, evening and through the night. Four hour-long visits a day at £22 an hour is roughly £615 a week, and that still leaves the nights uncovered. A live-in carer from around £800 a week covers the days and is on hand overnight too, which is why families often move to live-in care when visiting care stops being enough rather than when they run out of money.
A couple needing care can tip the balance further, because one live-in carer can often support two people for not much more than one. The detail, including what a live-in fee does and doesn't cover, is on the live-in care cost page in this section.
Where the money actually goes
Home care looks expensive until you take an hourly rate apart. The Homecare Association, which represents home care providers across the UK, works out each year what a provider must charge simply to run a safe, legal service and pay staff properly. For April 2026 to March 2027 that minimum is £34.42 an hour in England. The single largest piece is the carer's pay: the National Living Wage rose to £12.71 an hour in April 2026, and on top of the hour at the door the provider pays for travel time between calls, mileage, training, holiday pay, National Insurance, and the office and systems a regulated service needs.
That figure is a useful yardstick even if you're paying privately below it. It also explains a long-running problem in the sector: councils pay an average of about £25 an hour for the care they commission, well under what the Association says it costs to deliver, which is why some council-funded care can feel rushed. If a private provider quotes you far below £34.42, it's fair to ask how they manage it — sometimes it's efficiency, sometimes it's corners being cut on pay or training.
Help with the cost
You rarely have to meet the full price alone. After a free needs assessment from the council, a financial assessment decides whether it will contribute, based on savings and income. Benefits can help whatever your savings: Attendance Allowance for people over State Pension age isn't means-tested, and Pension Credit can unlock more. The rules differ across the UK — personal care at home is free in Scotland for those assessed as needing it, Wales caps the weekly charge for non-residential care, and Northern Ireland arranges care through Health and Social Care Trusts. The paying-for-care section goes through assessments, council funding and each benefit in detail.
In this section
These pages break the cost down by the type of care you're arranging.
Common questions
If you already know care is needed, tell us what's needed and where, and home care providers covering that postcode will contact you. It's free and there's no obligation.