O Level & A Level Tutor Fees: UK and USA vs Al Noor (2026)

Quick answer: A private GCSE, IGCSE or A Level tutor in the UK costs about £35 to £42 an hour on average, and £50 to £65 in London. In the USA, the tutoring marketplace Wyzant puts its average at $35 to $60 an hour, and independent professional tutors charge $75 to $150. Al Noor Tuition's online tutors teach the same Cambridge and Edexcel syllabuses one-to-one and typically charge USD 9 to 30 an hour, with each tutor setting their own rate.

If your child sits Cambridge or Edexcel exams in Manchester or Houston, a good private tutor near you will cost somewhere between £35 and $150 an hour. A tutor in Pakistan teaching the same syllabus online costs a fraction of that.

The obvious worry is that the price gap is a quality gap. Sometimes it is. This guide puts the numbers side by side, then gets to the question that matters more than any hourly rate: whether the one-to-one lesson you pay for is actually one-to-one.

What a private tutor costs in the UK in 2026

UK rates are well documented, because the big tutoring marketplaces publish their averages. The figures below come from Tutorful's published averages, a Parentkind and YouGov survey of parents, and TutorCruncher's 2026 rate guide.

Dollar figures use £1 = $1.32, close to the rate in mid-October 2026.

Experience moves a UK tutor up those ranges quickly. Someone who has taught the AQA or Edexcel specification for ten years, or marks for an exam board, tends to price at the top. A university student filling evenings prices at the bottom, and that tutor may never have taught your child's board at all.

What a tutor costs in the USA

American prices spread wider, partly because "tutor" covers everyone from a college sophomore to a test-prep company.

There is a catch for families following a British curriculum. Cambridge and Edexcel exams are not part of the American school system, so a US family whose child sits IGCSE or A Level needs a tutor who knows a specification most local tutors have never taught. In practice that pushes them toward the expensive rows.

What Al Noor's online tutors charge

Al Noor tutors set their own rates for students outside Pakistan. They typically charge between USD 9 and USD 30 an hour, depending on the subject and how experienced the tutor is. In the Gulf, where currencies are pegged to the dollar, that is about AED 33 to 110, SAR 34 to 113 or QAR 33 to 109 an hour. In the UK it works out at roughly £7 to £23.

The office confirms the exact rate and the payment details before regular classes begin, and the first class is free.

Why so much cheaper? Cost of living, not a cheaper syllabus. A tutor in Lahore or Karachi pays Pakistani rent and Pakistani grocery prices, so an hourly rate that is modest in London is a good professional income there. And the syllabus does not change at the border: Cambridge sets one specification per subject for every country, with question papers that vary only by time zone. More than 100,000 students in Pakistan sat Cambridge exams in June 2026, so the country has a large pool of teachers who have taught O Level and A Level for years.

A school year, side by side

Hourly rates hide the number that matters. Take an ordinary plan: two hours a week for a 36-week school year, which is 72 hours.

Even at the top of Al Noor's range, a family saves about $1,800 a year against the UK average. Add a second subject and the saving roughly doubles.

The cheap-tutor trick: one "one-to-one" slot, several students

The risk with a low price is what sometimes comes attached to it.

Some online tutors and small academies work like this. They quote a rate well below everyone else's to win the booking, and the first few lessons are genuinely one-to-one. Then another child appears on the call "just for today". Soon the cameras are off, the tutor is lecturing rather than asking questions, and your child's lesson has turned into a small group class. You are still paying a one-to-one price. The tutor is collecting two or three fees for the same hour.

It is hard to spot from the other side of a screen, so watch for these:

• A name in the participant list, or a voice, that is not the tutor's.
• Lessons that never ask your child to work a question while the tutor watches.
• Teaching that has nothing to do with last week's homework or mistakes, because it is pitched at a group.
• Your child's camera or microphone staying off "because of the connection".

If you are booking any tutor, get the one-to-one promise in writing, and sit in on a lesson yourself in the first month.

How Al Noor keeps one-to-one lessons one-to-one

Our rule is simple. A slot booked as one-to-one has one student in it, every time, for the full time you booked. A rule is only worth whatever enforces it, so here is what does.

• Lessons run in Al Noor Live, our own classroom, and everyone who joins a class is logged by name in its attendance record, with the minutes they were there. An extra student does not stay invisible.
• A class runs for the time that was booked. The classroom will not let a tutor end it early.
• Our office can join any live class quietly to see how it is going.
• Families and tutors talk through Al Noor. Phone numbers and email addresses are not exchanged, and messages are screened for them, so whatever was agreed about fees or missed lessons is on record for both sides.
• If a tutor is not the right fit, we change them at no cost.

One honest exception: in the UAE, Qatar and Oman, where consumer video calling is restricted, lessons run on Zoom or Google Meet instead. The one-to-one rule is the same there, but our own attendance logging does not reach those calls, so tell the office if a lesson is ever not what you booked.

Other checks before a tutor teaches your child

The one-to-one rule is the one families ask about most. These are the rest of the checks.

• When a tutor lists the schools they have taught at, a green tick on their profile means our office has checked that experience.
• Tutors can sit a recorded teaching assessment, scored on subject knowledge, clarity, language and presence, and a timed subject test. Both count toward how tutors are ranked when we shortlist for a family.
• Intro videos are hosted by Al Noor and approved by our team before they go on a profile. They play on our site, so nothing in them leads a family off the platform.
• Reviews come from families and are moderated, and a tutor's star rating appears only once real reviews exist.
• The first class is free, so you judge the teaching before you pay for any of it.

What makes the best education platform for O and A Level tuition?

Search for the best education platform, or the best online tutoring platform for O and A Level, and you mostly get lists ranked by whoever paid to be on them. A more useful test is five questions you can put to any platform, including us:

1. Does the tutor teach my child's exact board and syllabus code, or just "A Level Chemistry"?
2. Is a one-to-one lesson guaranteed one-to-one, and how would I find out if it was not?
3. Can I see attendance and what was covered without having to ask the tutor?
4. Do I know the hourly rate, and every other charge, before the first paid lesson?
5. If the tutor does not work out, can I change without paying again?

Those are the questions Al Noor is built around. We would rather you asked them of us than took our word for it, which is why the free first class exists.

Questions parents ask

Is an online tutor from Pakistan as good as a tutor in the UK?

For Cambridge and Edexcel exams the syllabus, the papers and the mark schemes are the same wherever the student lives. What differs is the individual tutor, and that is true in Birmingham too. Judge the person: use the free first class and ask them to walk through a past paper from your child's series.

What do Al Noor tutors charge for O Level and A Level?

Typically USD 9 to 30 an hour for students outside Pakistan, set by each tutor according to subject, level and experience. Families in Pakistan are quoted monthly packages in rupees instead.

Which boards do your tutors teach?

Cambridge O Level, IGCSE and AS & A Level; Pearson Edexcel International GCSE and A Level; GCSE for AQA, Edexcel, OCR and WJEC; the IB; the Federal Board (FBISE) syllabus taught in Pakistani community schools abroad; and SAT and AP preparation. Urdu, Islamic Studies and Quran are taught alongside.

How do lesson times work from abroad?

The UK is 4 hours behind Pakistan in summer and 5 in winter, so a 9pm lesson in Pakistan is a 4pm or 5pm lesson in London. The UAE and Oman are an hour behind; Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain two. New York is 9 or 10 hours behind, which puts an early-morning Pakistan slot in an American evening. Each country page lists its own times.

How do we pay from outside Pakistan?

Usually by international bank transfer to our account in Pakistan. The office confirms the amount before regular classes begin, and most families abroad pay monthly so they are not charged a bank fee every week.

Are female tutors available?

Yes, in every subject, including female Quran teachers.

Find a tutor for your country

Each country page has the lesson times, school week and local details for that country: UK, USA, Canada, Australia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Europe, or anywhere else. Or tell us what your child needs and we will suggest tutors who teach that board and level.

Sources

• Tutorful, How much does a tutor cost? (UK GCSE and A Level averages)
• Latimer Tuition, How much does a private tutor cost in the UK in 2026? (reports the Parentkind/YouGov average, published by The Times in September 2025)
• TutorCruncher, Average Tutoring Rates UK: 2026
• Wyzant, Tutors at an affordable price (stated average of $35 to $60 an hour)
• Private Prep, Average SAT Test Prep Cost: 2026 Data
• The Express Tribune, 100k Pak students receive Cambridge results (August 2026)
• Trading Economics, British pound (GBP/USD, 14 October 2026)