Pocket money for an 11 year old in the United Kingdom
Eleven is the last year before the payslip starts to grow up, and the jobs are now genuinely useful to the household.
An 11 year old in the United Kingdom earns
£5.50an hour
About £19.25 a week if they do 3½ hours of paid jobs. That's 43.3% 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 an 11 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.
Eleven year olds can do a full load of washing from basket to wardrobe, cook dinner for the family with a recipe, clean the kitchen after it, and do the weekly vacuum and mop. An hour of work in a block is fine on a weekend. Many can also babysit a younger sibling for short periods with a parent in the house, which is a real job with a real standard time.
Talk about next year now: at twelve the payslip gets a locked savings line. Explaining it a year early turns it into a milestone rather than a deduction.
The payslip at 11
Jobs, pay, interest, balance, and a preview of the locked savings line that starts at twelve. Show it as zero this year so the change is not a surprise.
The Jobs Board at age 11, £5.50 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Do a full load of washing, basket to wardrobe | 40 min | £3.67 |
| Cook dinner for the family | 45 min | £4.13 |
| Clean the kitchen after dinner | 20 min | £1.83 |
| Vacuum and mop the floors | 40 min | £3.67 |
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 11 year olds.
How much should an eleven year old earn from chores?
At the hourly rate for an eleven year old, for around three and a half hours a week, the weekly figure is on this page. What they earn depends on the hours, and the hours are the family's dial.
Can an eleven year old have a paid job outside the home?
In most countries not yet, apart from things like paper rounds where local rules allow. The pocket wage is the only wage they can earn, which is why it is worth getting right.
What is a locked savings slice?
A share of each payslip, from about twelve, that goes into savings they cannot spend until a date you both agree. It is the family version of a term deposit and it starts next year.
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.