Written calmly, with the maths visible. Eight sections you can read top-to-bottom in about ten minutes, anchored by a calculator that already has sensible numbers in it. The aim is one honest answer, not a brochure-wall.
Floor rate from the Homecare Association 2026/27. Weekend multiplier 1.25x is the typical published agency uplift.
Written by Oliver Wakefield-Smith. Reviewed for accuracy against the Homecare Association's 2026/27 minimum-price report and Age UK's 2026 factsheets. Numbers verified 21 June 2026.
The short answer
In 2026, self-pay home care in the UK costs about £24-£40/hr[1] for visiting hours, with a national headline of around £28 to £35. Live-in care runs about £950-£1900/wk[1]. The Homecare Association's 2026/27 minimum sustainable price is £34.42/hr[1]. In England and Northern Ireland, the council means-tests at £14,250 and £23,250 of capital[5]; in Scotland personal care is free[10]; in Wales chargeable non-residential care is capped at £100/wk[12]. Attendance Allowance pays £73.90 or £110.40 a week toward whatever the buyer ends up paying[6].
The Homecare Association publishes a single, calmly stated number every year: the minimum hourly price an agency would need to charge to pay its carers National Living Wage, cover travel, training and sick pay, and earn a regulated margin. For 2026/27 that number is £34.42/hr[1]. When your quote sits below that, it is being subsidised by the carer's pay or by the agency's margin, both of which are eventually fragile. When it sits above, you are paying for something else, and you should know what.
The headline self-pay range in 2026 looks like this:
| Region | Hourly | Live-in / wk |
|---|---|---|
| London | £32-£40 | £1,300-£1,900 |
| South East | £30-£36 | £1,200-£1,800 |
| South West | £28-£34 | £1,150-£1,700 |
| East of England | £28-£34 | £1,150-£1,700 |
| East Midlands | £26-£32 | £1,100-£1,650 |
| West Midlands | £26-£32 | £1,100-£1,650 |
| Yorkshire | £25-£31 | £1,050-£1,600 |
| North West | £25-£31 | £1,050-£1,600 |
| North East | £24-£30 | £1,050-£1,550 |
Self-pay ranges derived from provider published rates and the Homecare Association 2026/27 floor. Council-commissioned rates are roughly £6-£10/hr below these for the same regions.
Hourly visits become live-in's natural competitor somewhere between 50 and 60 hours a week. Below that, you are paying for fewer staff hours, more privacy and quicker response. Above it, you are paying twice for the same hour of presence. A 56-hour-a-week visiting package at £32/hr is £1,792/wk; The Good Care Group's managed live-in starts at about £1,500/wk[1], with a dedicated carer in the house overnight and a back-up rota.
The arithmetic is honest but the comparison is not just price. A live-in carer needs a spare room, a two-hour daily break, food and a quiet corner to sleep. An hourly carer needs none of those. See live-in vs hourly for the full break-even chart, and live-in vs care home for the residential comparison.
England and Northern Ireland use a two-threshold means test. Below £14,250 of capital, the council ignores capital entirely and looks only at weekly income. Between £14,250 and £23,250 it adds tariff income of £1 a week for every £250 above the lower threshold. Above £23,250, the buyer self-funds in full[5].
Scotland is different. Personal care (washing, dressing, medication prompts, continence support) is free at the point of delivery for every adult assessed as needing it[10]. The buyer still pays for hours that are not personal care: housework, social support, sitting service.
Wales is different again. Non-residential care charges are capped at £100/wk regardless of need, income or capital[12]. That £100 can be offset by Attendance Allowance.
The means-test calculator turns those rules into a weekly number for your mum's exact savings, income and AA status.
Attendance Allowance is the single most underclaimed benefit in adult social care. It is not means-tested. It pays £73.90/wk at the lower rate or £110.40/wk at the higher rate in 2026/27[6], takes about 8-10 weeks to come through, and is paid four-weekly in arrears. It does not count as income for the non-residential means test in most councils, and it can be spent on whatever the buyer chooses, including the agency bill.
NHS Continuing Healthcare pays 100% of the home-care package for people whose primary need is health, not social[16]. The bar is high but the savings are total. The Fast Track route gets a package in place within 24-48 hours for someone in the final weeks of life[17]. See how to apply and end of life care at home.
Carer's Allowance is £83.30/wk for a family carer providing 35+ hours of unpaid care[7], but it overlaps badly with the State Pension and is worth checking against an Age UK benefits adviser before claiming.
For a self-funder whose mum needs 14 visit-hours a week of standard personal care in the South East, the cheapest honest path looks like this:
Every other calculator on the first page of Google asks for one input (a postcode, or hours) and returns one number (a national average, or a referral form). The cost calculator on this site asks for region, hours, complexity and weekend share, then shows you the working: the £34.42 floor, the region uplift, the complexity multiplier, the weekend share, each as a separately sourced line. The means-test calculator takes those numbers and applies your mum's actual capital, income and benefits, returning a weekly out-of-pocket figure that you can read on a phone in a kitchen.
No referral form, no postcode lottery, no "speak to an adviser". The trust point is that the maths is visible.
This site does not take referral fees and is not affiliated with any home-care provider. Every number on every page is footnoted to a primary source, with the date it was last checked, listed at /sources. The author and reviewer are named at /who-wrote-this. If you find a number that has gone stale, flag it and it will be checked the same week.