Pocket money for a 10 year old in the United Kingdom
Double digits. At ten the pocket wage has roughly doubled since five, and they know it.
A 10 year old in the United Kingdom earns
£5.00an hour
About £16.25 a week if they do 3¼ hours of paid jobs. That's 39.3% of the minimum wage in the United Kingdom.
Worked out from GOV.UK — National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates, rates from 1 April 2026.
The rate at every age in the United Kingdom.
Pocket Wage is a straight line, one step every birthday, until it meets the real minimum wage. Here's the whole ladder in the United Kingdom.
- Pocket wage, paid by you
- Real minimum wage, paid by a boss
At 16, the legal minimum in the United Kingdom is £8.00 an hour. Pocket Wage draws a straight line from there back to zero, and a kid's age picks the spot on it.
What a 10 year old can do, and what it pays.
Every paid job has a standard time: how long it should take, not how long it did. Dawdle and you earn less a minute. Get good at it and you earn more. There's no timer to game and no price to haggle.
Ten year olds can mow a small lawn with supervision, cook a simple dinner, clean the whole bathroom and wash windows. Forty-five-minute jobs are realistic on a weekend. They are also old enough to keep their own record of jobs done and compare it to the payslip, which is the beginning of financial literacy nobody has to teach.
This is the age to talk about the ladder itself: show them the rate at eleven, twelve, thirteen. A ten year old who can see next year's pay rise coming has a reason to stick with the system through the boring weeks.
The payslip at 10
Jobs, pay, interest, balance. Ten is where a basic income line, if you use one, should be shown separately from earned wages so the difference is plain.
The Jobs Board at age 10, £5.00 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Mow the lawn | 45 min | £3.75 |
| Cook a simple dinner | 40 min | £3.33 |
| Clean the whole bathroom | 30 min | £2.50 |
| Wash the windows | 30 min | £2.50 |
Example jobs and times. Family Duties, like clearing your own plate, are unpaid: belonging isn't billable.
How junior wages work in the United Kingdom.
The UK has three legal rates: the National Living Wage for 21 and over, a rate for 18 to 20 year olds, and a rate for 16 and 17 year olds. They change every 1 April. The minimum wage applies from school leaving age, so a sixteen year old with a Saturday job is legally owed the 16 to 17 rate.
Pocket Wage anchors on the 16 to 17 rate and draws a straight line back to zero. At current rates that works out to almost exactly fifty pence per year of age: a ten year old earns five pounds an hour, a twelve year old six. Every April the line is redrawn from the new rate.
Children can do light work from 13 under local council bylaws, such as paper rounds, but the minimum wage does not apply until 16. Between 13 and 15 the pocket wage may well beat what a paper round pays.
Source: GOV.UK — National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates, rates from 1 April 2026.
Questions parents ask about 10 year olds.
How much pocket money should a ten year old get?
The old rule of a dollar per year of age would give ten a week for nothing. A pocket wage at the rate for a ten year old, for about three hours of jobs a week, comes to the figure on this page, and it is earned.
Should a ten year old get pocket money without doing chores?
Family Duties are unpaid and expected. If you want a safety net, Pocket Wage supports a basic income line on the payslip, marked as not earned, so the kid sees the two kinds of money side by side.
What is a fair hourly rate for a ten year old?
The rate on this page: the country's minimum wage, scaled to age ten by the same straight line the law draws for junior workers. It is not a number anyone made up.
How much pocket money should a child get in the UK?
The pocket-money surveys published by UK banks find averages of a few pounds a week at primary age and around ten for teenagers, given weekly regardless. A pocket wage pays the rate for their age for the hours they work, so the answer depends on the jobs.
Every birthday is a pay rise.
The app runs the whole thing: the Jobs Board, the standard times, a sacred weekly payday with a payslip, and Pay-Rise Day on every birthday. No cards, no stored money. The parent is the bank.