What receptionists are paid
The most reliable figures come from the Office for National Statistics, which collects pay records from employers every April for its Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. It counts receptionists as an occupation of their own. These are its latest results.
| Receptionists, 2025 | Full-time | Part-time |
|---|---|---|
| Median pay a year | £24,678 | £13,783 |
| The middle half earn | £22,124 to £28,730 | £10,293 to £16,577 |
| Median pay an hour | £13.22 | £12.75 |
| Median paid hours a week | 37.5 | 20.7 |
More than half of the receptionist jobs in the survey are part-time: 105,000 of 185,000.
The yearly figures cover employees on adult rates who had been in the same job for more than a year, for the tax year that ended on 5 April 2025. The hourly and weekly figures are for April 2025. These are the 2025 provisional results; ONS had not published its 2026 results when we checked.
Other sources sit close to that. The government's National Careers Service puts a receptionist's pay at £21,000 for a starter to £25,000 with experience, for a 37 to 40 hour week. Job sites come out a little higher: Indeed showed an average of £25,495 from the salaries reported to it, and Reed an average of £29,121 across its job adverts, when we checked on 12 October 2026.
The minimum wage now sets the floor
Receptionist pay sits close to the legal minimum. In April 2025 the National Living Wage was £12.21 an hour, and the ONS figures show the lowest-paid tenth of receptionists earned £12.21 an hour or less. The median was £12.95, 74p above the minimum.
On 1 April 2026 the National Living Wage rose to £12.71 for everyone aged 21 or over. For a full-time week that works out as:
- 37.5 hours a week: £24,785 a year
- 40 hours a week: £26,437 a year
That is already more than last year's full-time median of £24,678. So in 2026 a full-time receptionist aged 21 or over cannot lawfully be paid less than £24,785 for a 37.5-hour week. Workers aged 18 to 20 have a lower minimum of £10.85 an hour, which is £21,158 a year for the same week.
Our homepage says "A receptionist is £24k a year". That rounds down the ONS full-time median, and it counts pay alone. As the next section shows, the cost to an employer is higher.
What an employer pays on top
Pay is not the whole bill. For the tax year from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027, an employer also owes:
- Employer National Insurance: 15% of pay above £5,000 a year.
- Workplace pension: at least 3% of pay between £6,240 and £50,270, for staff aged 22 up to State Pension age who earn at least £10,000 a year.
Here is what that comes to in three common cases, worked out from those rates: a 37.5-hour week on the minimum wage, a full-time receptionist on £28,730 (the ONS upper quartile, so a quarter earn more), and 20 hours a week on the minimum wage.
| Cost a year | Full-time on the minimum wage | Full-time on £28,730 | 20 hours on the minimum wage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay | £24,785 | £28,730 | £13,218 |
| Employer National Insurance | £2,968 | £3,560 | £1,233 |
| Minimum employer pension | £556 | £675 | £209 |
| Total a year | £28,309 | £32,964 | £14,661 |
| Total a month | £2,359 | £2,747 | £1,222 |
| With the allowance | £25,341 | £29,405 | £13,428 |
Figures are rounded to the nearest pound, so a column may be £1 out.
The Employment Allowance lets eligible employers take up to £10,500 a year off their employer National Insurance. Most small businesses that employ someone besides their own director can claim it. If you qualify and have not used the allowance on other staff, the National Insurance line disappears, which is the last row of the table.
The table leaves out costs that vary too much to put a number on: recruiting and training, a desk and equipment, running payroll, and cover when the receptionist is away. Statutory Sick Pay is also the employer's to pay: £123.25 a week, or 80% of average weekly earnings if that is lower, from the first day of illness.
What that buys in hours
A full-time receptionist is at the desk for 37.5 of the 168 hours in a week, about 22%. Workers are also entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, which is 28 days for a five-day week. So the desk is staffed for about 1,740 hours a year unless you pay for cover.
Put the two together and a full-time receptionist on the minimum wage costs about £16.27 for every hour the desk is staffed, against an hourly wage of £12.71. A 20-hour part-timer covers about 12% of the week.
The other 130 hours of the week are evenings, nights and weekends. Missing calls is common: in BT's 2026 survey of 1,500 UK small and medium businesses, 67% said they miss at least one call on an average day that they believe costs them business. Our missed call statistics page has the detail.
Cheaper ways to cover the phone
If the job you need doing is answering calls and enquiries, there are two cheaper options. Neither replaces a person at a front desk.
A telephone answering service. A person at another company answers in your name and takes a message or books the caller in. Prices are per call or per bundle, and many providers only quote on request. These examples are from the providers' own pages on 12 October 2026:
- answer.co.uk: £2.20 a call plus VAT for new customers, pay as you go, with no monthly fee and 24-hour cover as standard.
- Answerpoint: £29.95 a month for up to 20 calls or £49.95 for up to 50, then £1.50 a call, answered Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm and Saturday 10am to 4pm.
- Moneypenny: no published prices. Its standard hours are 8.30am to 6pm, with longer hours for an extra fee.
At those prices, 100 calls a month comes to £220 plus VAT with the first and £124.95 with the second.
An AI receptionist. Software answers instead of a person. With subba, plans start at £9.99 a month and cover website chat and contact-form enquiries. Answering the phone is an add-on: £29.99 a month for 100 minutes, £74.99 for 300 or £119.99 for 600. A plan with the smallest phone add-on is £39.98 a month, about £480 a year. Other AI receptionists are priced differently, and our guide to AI receptionists in the UK compares them.
Side by side, with costs for a full-time receptionist on the minimum wage, 100 calls a month at £2.20 a call, and a subba plan with 100 minutes of calls a month:
| Receptionist | Answering service | subba |
|---|---|---|
| Cost a year | ||
| About £28,300 | About £2,640 plus VAT | About £480 |
| Hours covered | ||
| 37.5 a week, less holiday | Office hours or round the clock | Every hour |
| Greets visitors and handles post | ||
| Yes | No | No |
| Difficult or upset callers | ||
| A person | A person | Passed to you, or a message taken |
| Books appointments | ||
| Yes | Often | Yes |
These are not like for like. A receptionist does much more than answer the phone, and 100 calls are not the same as 100 minutes. Prices are before VAT.
When a receptionist is worth it
A receptionist earns the cost when the job is more than the phone. The National Careers Service lists greeting visitors, signing people in, handling post and deliveries and managing bookings alongside answering enquiries. A clinic, a busy salon or an office with people coming through the door needs someone there.
A person is also better with callers who are upset, confused or need a judgement call. Software is better at being there at 9pm on a Sunday. Many businesses use both: a person for the front desk and the difficult conversations, and an answering service or an AI receptionist for the calls and messages nobody is free to take.
How we worked this out
Pay figures are from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 14, 2025 provisional results, for receptionists (occupation code 4216). Yearly pay on the minimum wage is the hourly rate times the weekly hours times 52. Employer National Insurance is 15% of yearly pay above £5,000, and the pension is 3% of yearly pay between £6,240 and £50,270, both at the rates for the 2026 to 2027 tax year. Staffed hours are the weekly hours times 46.4 weeks, which is the year less 5.6 weeks of holiday.
We have no connection with the companies named on this page. Their prices are as they published them on the date shown.
Last checked on 12 October 2026. We will update the pay figures when ONS publishes its 2026 results. If you know a better source or spot a mistake, email [email protected] and we will put it right.
Where subba fits
subba is an AI receptionist and booking system for small UK businesses. On every plan, from £9.99 a month, it answers your website chat and takes bookings online at any hour. Answering your phone is an add-on, from £29.99 a month for 100 minutes. It does not greet visitors or handle post, and on a call it puts people through to you when you are open, or takes a message, when it cannot help. The pricing page has the full breakdown.