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What do the official childcare prices say for London in England and Wales?

Childcare prices in England and Wales, from Department for Education. An official figure as of 31 December 2025.

An official average or median published by a statistics office or regulator, not individual sales.

£8.00 per hour, median

The median hourly fee that providers in London charge parents for 3 and 4 year olds was £8.00 an hour in 2025 (mean £8.60). Official median published by Department for Education (England) for 2025.

Reference period
2025 (the period the publisher states for this figure)
Kind of figure
An official median published by Department for Education. It is passed on as published: no range of ours, and no count of records unless the publisher gives one.
Records behind it
1,057

The hourly fee providers say they charge parents (the parent-paid fee) for hours parents pay for; multiply by the hours booked. Government-funded hours and Tax-Free Childcare are not deducted. England only. No age_group was given, so the answer is for 3 and 4 year olds (preschool); see by_age_group for the others.

Source: Department for Education. Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0. Explore education statistics says. Live answer: /api/v1/childcare?country=GB&area=London

Where this comes from

Source
Childcare and early years provider survey (SCEYP), published by Department for Education (England)
Licence
Open Government Licence v3.0. Explore education statistics says: "All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated".
Attribution
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Department for Education, Childcare and early years provider survey 2025.
Figures as of
. This page is rebuilt when the daily price library is deployed.
How fresh the source is
Calendar year 2025 (survey fieldwork May to July 2025, published 11 December 2025; next release December 2026)
Limits
England only (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not covered, so GB here means England). Hourly fees, with no split between full-time and part-time; multiply by the hours booked. Fees are what providers say they charge parents for hours parents pay for, before Tax-Free Childcare and without the government-funded hours many families receive. Provider-type figures exist for England as a whole only; regions have no provider split; local authority figures cover 2 year olds and 3 and 4 year olds only and are based on small samples (some are flagged low reliability). School-age fees are published by region only. Survey estimates carry sampling error.
Rule
A figure built from records is shown only when at least 5 records sit behind it; official statistics are shown as such, with their reference period. See how we earn trust and the method.

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Using the ProofPrice MCP server (pricepaid_childcare_prices): What do the official childcare prices say for London in England and Wales? Give the figure with its unit, the period it covers, the number of records where the source states one, and cite the source and licence.

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Information, not a valuation or offer. Ranges describe past recorded prices.