Pocket money for a 13 year old in the United Kingdom
A teenager. Thirteen is where a pocket wage starts to be compared to what friends earn, and it holds up.
A 13 year old in the United Kingdom earns
£6.50an hour
About £27.63 a week if they do 4¼ hours of paid jobs. That's 51.1% 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 13 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.
Thirteen year olds can do adult jobs at adult quality: the full weekly clean, all the family washing, cooking most nights if they want the hours, and skilled outdoor work like pressure washing and weeding beds. Ninety-minute jobs are fine. In some countries they can also start light paid work outside the home at this age, usually with no minimum wage protection, which makes the pocket wage a useful yardstick: is that job paying less than the rate at home?
This is also the age to start talking about where the rate comes from. Show them the junior wage table for your country. A thirteen year old who knows what a fifteen year old legally earns is already planning.
The payslip at 13
Jobs, pay, interest, locked savings, and the balance split between spendable and locked. Show the year-to-date total: thirteen year olds are impressed by big numbers they earned.
The Jobs Board at age 13, £6.50 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Do the full weekly clean | 1 hr 30 min | £9.75 |
| Do all the family washing | 1 hr | £6.50 |
| Cook dinner for the week's busiest night | 45 min | £4.88 |
| Weed and tidy the garden beds | 1 hr | £6.50 |
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 13 year olds.
How much should a thirteen year old get paid for chores?
The rate on this page, for about four and a half hours of jobs a week. It is scaled from the country's minimum wage, so it rises with the law and with every birthday.
Can a thirteen year old work outside the home?
In some countries, light work like a paper round is allowed from thirteen, often with no minimum wage attached. Compare what it pays to their pocket wage before they take it.
Should teenagers be paid for chores at all?
Family Duties, no. The Jobs Board, yes: it is real work, priced by the time it should take, and it is the apprenticeship for the paid job that is one or two years away.
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.