Freelance day rate guide 2025

Previously the Bibby Tables/Ready Reckoner. Produced by Katharine King in association with Andrew Bibby.
© Andrew Bibby 2025, used under licence

Before using the 2025 Guide, please take a moment to read through our guide on rates and fees to find out more about calculating fees and rates. Some creative freelancers have very different approaches to fees and rates, and not all work on a day rate. 

What is this guide for?

The 2025 guide aims to calculate as accurately as possible the equivalent daily income rates for UK-based freelance creative workers to comparable employee staff salary levels within the range of £23,000-£60,000 per year. 

It is designed as a useful tool both for freelancers and organisations to negotiate rates. As a starting point for discussion, it is based on actual current costs that an employers would incur, including rent, heating and taxation. Many freelance creators don’t realise that they are responsible for a range of costs which, were they working as an employee, would be covered by their employer. These include office equipment, premises, sick pay, pensions, holiday pay, insurance and various other costs. When pricing your services, it is useful to take into account what the comparable cost would be for employers if they used their own employees instead.

What is it not?

The guide is not intended to be used to set ‘Creative Rates’ for work where there are union collectively negotiated rates or that involve the licensing or assignment of rights, for example screenwriting, illustration and photography (Read our guide on rates and fees).

Who is the guide for?

It is a free resource for freelance creators; journalists, authors, translators, musicians, and visual artists working from their own premises, to help enable them to make informed decisions when proposing day rates and entering fee negotiations with commissioners.

Those who work in licensing-based industries may still find the guide useful for certain types of jobs outside of their typical commissioned work, or they might like to use it for an internal resource to add to a range of tools when considering rates or commissioning others. For example, they may choose to charge a day rate for things like workshops, live events, school visits, or even excess amends outside of the original project terms.

Who produced the guide?

The Ready Reckoner was developed and produced by Andrew Bibby (www.andrewbibby.com), a professional freelance financial journalist in association with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). Now in its ninth edition, the CRA, in partnership with the Society of Authors and with the agreement of both Andrew Bibby and the NUJ, have taken on the production, maintenance and hosting of the guide. We hope to update it annually with relevant data each spring.

Every attempt has been made to base the information they contain on accurate current data, but no liability is accepted for any errors which have crept in. 

We would like to thank both Andrew Bibby and the NUJ for their work setting up the Reckoner and for maintaining them over the years.