The tutor's guide to contracts and invoicing (UK)

Tutoring is unlike most freelance work in one way that shapes everything else: the person paying you is usually a parent, and the person you actually work with is their child. That puts trust — and safeguarding — at the centre of the arrangement, before any of the usual questions about fees and cancellations. A parent isn't just buying lessons; they're handing you time alone with their child, often in their home or online. The right agreement makes that trust concrete, and then handles the ordinary business calmly on top.

This guide covers the terms that matter for tutoring specifically — safeguarding and background checks, the parent-as-client relationship and what you can honestly promise, cancellations and no-shows, and how blocks and pricing work — then how to invoice so you're paid on time.

A quick note first: TrustSolo isn't a law firm or an accountancy, and nothing here is legal advice. Its contract templates are customisable starting points, not solicitor-reviewed documents — and for a high-value or unusual arrangement, a professional opinion is worth the money.

Why a written agreement matters for tutors

Tutoring has a couple of features no other freelance discipline shares, and they're worth naming. The first is the triangle: your client (the person who pays and signs) is usually a parent, but your student is someone else — a child, who can't contract for themselves. The second is that you're often working unsupervised with that child. Neither is a problem; both are reasons to be clear in writing about how things will work.

A written agreement settles the practical questions before they're tested — who signs off, who pays, what safeguarding looks like, what happens when a lesson is cancelled — and it reassures a careful parent that you take all of this as seriously as they do. Sent before the first session, it does that quietly, and marks you out as the professional you are.

Safeguarding and background checks: doing it properly

This is where tutoring is genuinely different, so it's worth getting right — and worth being accurate about, because there's a lot of loose information around.

The honest legal position. There is no blanket legal requirement for a self-employed private tutor to hold a DBS check. The one hard legal duty runs the other way: under section 7 of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 it is a criminal offence for someone who has been barred from working with children to do so, and regular tutoring of a child counts as the kind of work that falls under those rules. So the law says, in effect, "don't work with children if you're barred" — not "every tutor must hold a check." That said, a check is strongly expected in practice: many parents and most agencies will ask for one, and it's a straightforward way to earn a family's confidence.

What you can get. An enhanced check is the right one for work with children — an Enhanced DBS check in England and Wales, PVG scheme membership via Disclosure Scotland, or an enhanced AccessNI check in Northern Ireland. There's a genuinely useful recent change here: since January 2026, self-employed people — the government's own example is a private tutor — can apply for an Enhanced DBS check themselves, through a registered DBS umbrella body, which for years they couldn't. If your particular role isn't eligible for an enhanced check, a basic DBS check (which anyone can obtain) is the sensible minimum. The current guidance is on gov.uk under DBS checks for self-employed people.

Good practice around the check. A check is the start, not the whole of safeguarding. It's sensible to keep a short safeguarding policy you can share on request, to report any concern to the appropriate authorities promptly, and to set up sessions safely: for online lessons, use a platform with sensible safeguards and keep contact on it rather than in private messages; for in-person lessons with an under-18, arrange for a parent, guardian or other responsible adult to be present or nearby. None of this is heavy — it's mostly common sense written down — and a parent who sees you've thought about it will trust you the more for it.

TrustSolo's tutoring contract template is built around exactly this — a safeguarding notice covering checks, a policy, reporting, and safe online and in-person sessions — as a customisable starting point you adapt to how you work. You can see how it fits together under contracts.

The parent, the student and what you promise

Because the paying client and the student are usually different people, it's worth being clear about who the contract is with and what it commits everyone to.

The parent or guardian is your client — they sign, they pay, and they're your point of contact. It's fair, and reassuring to them, to set out that they remain responsible for supervising their child before and after the session itself. Confidentiality matters here too: what you learn about a student — their progress, their difficulties, anything personal — stays between you and the parent, and isn't shared elsewhere. The two honest exceptions are where the law requires disclosure, or where there's a safeguarding concern that must be reported; both rightly override confidentiality.

And there's one promise worth not making. You can teach well, prepare thoroughly and give honest feedback — but you can't guarantee a grade or an exam result, because how a student does depends on their effort, their attendance, the work they do between sessions, and their starting point, none of which are wholly in your hands. Saying so plainly protects you from a parent who reads a disappointing result as a broken promise, and it's simply true: exam boards and schools, not you, decide the marks.

Sessions, cancellation and no-shows

A tutor's income is tied to slots in a diary, so the terms around time are where the money is protected. Set them out from the first lesson so nothing comes as a surprise.

• Session details. Agree the subject, the format (online or in person), the length, and how often you'll meet. Small clarity here prevents most muddles later.
• A tiered cancellation policy. The fair shape is graduated: cancel with plenty of notice and there's no charge; cancel closer in and part of the fee applies; cancel at the last minute or don't show and it's up to the full fee — the principle being that you're recovering the cost of a slot you couldn't re-fill, reduced if you can re-book it. It cuts both ways: if you have to cancel, you reschedule at no charge or credit the session.
• Online sessions. For online work, it's reasonable to agree that the family provides suitable equipment, a decent connection and a quiet space, and that you're not responsible for interruptions from their end.

Pricing, blocks and getting paid

Tutoring is usually priced per hour or per session, set by subject and level — there's no reason GCSE maths and university-admissions coaching should cost the same. Two other models are worth knowing: block or package booking — selling a set of sessions upfront — gives you committed income and a student invested in turning up, and taking payment for the block in advance is normal; and group sessions let you charge each student less while earning more per hour, where a shared goal like exam prep allows it. For how each works and a sense of what UK tutors charge, see what UK tutors charge; as a rough, indicative guide the range runs from around £30 to £50 an hour and rises with level, but treat that as a starting reference rather than a fixed figure. The free rate calculator then works backwards from the income you need. If you teach in person, remember travel time is unpaid time — build it into the rate or keep to students close enough that it doesn't quietly eat your day.

One point specific to tutoring is worth being clear-eyed about. Most of your clients are private individuals — parents — not businesses. The statutory right to charge interest and recovery costs on late commercial payments applies between businesses, so it doesn't give you the same automatic footing with a parent who pays late. Your real protection with private clients is simpler and set up front: take payment for blocks in advance, ask for a deposit where it's sensible, and hold a clear cancellation policy — so you're rarely chasing money after the fact. That remains the stronger play, and it's worth putting the effort there first.

As a backstop, you can also agree an interest rate for late payment in the contract itself — with a consumer client that's the only place it can come from. Keep it modest: under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 an unfair term "is not binding on the consumer", and a clause that charges a parent a punitive rate is more likely to be struck out than enforced, leaving you with nothing. Our guide to late-paying clients walks through the options in full.

Your invoice then follows the same rules as any freelance invoice — a unique number, your details and the client's, a clear description, the amount and a due date. Our guide to how to invoice as a freelancer covers exactly what to include, and for the underlying terms every freelance contract should carry, the six clauses every freelance contract needs is a good companion read.

How TrustSolo helps tutors

TrustSolo is built to take the admin off your desk. The tutoring contract template gives you a customisable starting point covering the safeguarding notice, the session details, a tiered cancellation policy, the honest no-guaranteed-grade position, and confidentiality; the invoicing handles your per-session, weekly, monthly or block billing with a payment link attached; and a running estimate of your Income Tax and Class 4 National Insurance keeps your numbers in view as you go. It's there to make the business side quiet and predictable, so your attention stays on the teaching.

The view tailored for tutors lives at TrustSolo for tutors.

Get the agreement and the invoicing set up once and the business side mostly looks after itself. When you'd like the paperwork to do that, you can start free — no card required.