UK SEO Labour Cost Benchmark
The median published figure in the UK SEO Labour Cost Benchmark is 32.06 GBP across 2 sources' own pages (range 19.67 to 44.46 GBP), read 21 October 2026.
2 of the 10 named sources read in full publish a figure; 8 publish none, read 21 October 2026.
The median is down 12.40 GBP since 26 September 2026 (was 44.46 GBP across 1).
By occupation
| Breakdown | Median | Range | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| occupationall full-time employees (UK median) | 19.67GBP | 19.67 to 19.67GBP | 1 |
Every figure, with its source
One row per published figure: the figure as the source's own page publishes it, the page, and the day it was read. A figure that is not on a page we read is not on this one.
| Source | Figure | Breakdown | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| IT Jobs Watch - SEO consultant contract rates, England | 44.46GBP | 2026-10-21 | |
| ONS - Employee earnings in the UK (ASHE bulletin) | 19.67GBP | all full-time employees (UK median) | 2026-10-12 |
The sentence each figure was read from (2)
- IT Jobs Watch - SEO consultant contract rates, England, read 2026-10-21:
Median hourly rate £44.46 £25.15 £46.18
- ONS - Employee earnings in the UK (ASHE bulletin), read 2026-10-12:
Median hourly earnings (excluding overtime) for full-time employees were £19.67 an hour in April 2025, compared with £18.66 in April 2024 (an increase of 5.4%).
Read in full, publishes no figure
8 named sources were read in full on the dates shown and print no usable figure. They are counted, never filled in.
- ONS - ASHE Table 2, earnings by two-digit SOC, read 2026-10-12: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- ONS - ASHE Table 29, earnings by industry and occupation, read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- ONS - Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), read 2026-09-12: every candidate on the page was refused
- GOV.UK - rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027, read 2026-10-19: every candidate on the page was refused
- GOV.UK - National Insurance rates and categories, read 2026-09-19: every candidate on the page was refused
- GOV.UK - National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates, read 2026-09-12: every candidate on the page was refused
- GOV.UK - Employment Allowance: what you'll get, read 2026-09-19: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- YunoJuno - SEO consultant contractor rates, read 2026-10-21: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
Methodology
Every row is a verbatim sentence read from the named source's own page through our fetch service on the date shown, hash-pinned to the stored read (the sha of the page's visible text; the raw page is mirrored to R2).
2 of the 10 named sources that could be read published a usable figure; 8 published none and are recorded as not published, never filled in; 0 could not be read (blocked, dead or unreachable) and count nowhere.
The headline figures (median, minimum, maximum, quartiles) are over ONE figure per source in GBP (a source's median where its page yielded several accepted sentences), so N counts sources, never sentences; 122 candidate sentence(s) were refused by a reviewer with the reason recorded.
The fuller derivation this dataset is chartered to grow into (not yet what the figures above are; they are each source's own published figure as read): the fully-loaded monthly cost of the labour a retainer buys, built from ONS ASHE median earnings for the occupation joined to the employer National Insurance rate and Employment Allowance from HMRC's own tables, expressed as a cost-per-hour and set beside the price index's published bands - so a reader can see how many hours of UK labour a £399 tier can contain and whether it can contain any.
Nobody publishes this join: the agencies publish a price, the ONS publishes a wage, and no page in the harvest put the two on the same axis
122 candidate sentences on these pages were refused by a reviewer; each refusal and its reason is recorded in the review ledger.
Sources (10)
- ONS - Employee earnings in the UK (ASHE bulletin)(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ONS - ASHE Table 2, earnings by two-digit SOC(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ONS - ASHE Table 29, earnings by industry and occupation(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ONS - Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE)(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- GOV.UK - rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- GOV.UK - National Insurance rates and categories(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- GOV.UK - National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- GOV.UK - Employment Allowance: what you'll get(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- YunoJuno - SEO consultant contractor rates(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- IT Jobs Watch - SEO consultant contract rates, England(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
Cite or embed this figure
The median published figure in the UK SEO Labour Cost Benchmark is 32.06 GBP across 2 sources' own pages (range 19.67 to 44.46 GBP), read 21 October 2026.
2 of the 10 named sources read in full publish a figure; 8 publish none, read 21 October 2026.
UK SEO Labour Cost Benchmark, occupation all full-time employees (UK median): median 19.67 GBP across 1 source, read 21 October 2026.
The median is down 12.40 GBP since 26 September 2026 (was 44.46 GBP across 1).
Cite as: "costseo.co.uk UK SEO Labour Cost Benchmark", updated 2026-11-05, https://costseo.co.uk/datasets/uk-seo-labour-cost-benchmark/.
Download the CSV (2 rows, computed 2026-11-05)
Questions this data answers
What does the work inside an SEO retainer cost to employ in the UK, which is the floor any published price has to clear?
The median published figure in the UK SEO Labour Cost Benchmark is 32.06 GBP across 2 sources' own pages (range 19.67 to 44.46 GBP), read 21 October 2026.
Where do the figures in the UK SEO Labour Cost Benchmark come from?
Every figure is quoted from its source's own page and dated (last read 21 Oct 2026). 10 named sources were read and 2 publish a figure; the 8 that publish none are recorded as not published, never estimated.