Analysis of the cost of coaching

Since my previous article on coach prices in 2022, much more data has become available – including the authoritative 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study. This led to me doing this comprehensive new article to give an overview of coach costs and fees for 2024. Whether you’re a client wondering how much a coaching session will cost you, or you’re a coach deciding what rate to charge clients – this article is for you. I cover off both personal coaching (including life coaching and career coaching); and corporate coaching (including business coaching, professional coaching and executive coaching). I’ve reviewed coach prices per hour in the UK, in Western Europe, and globally. 

Summary

Here’s a quick overview, with links to more detail:

• UK coaching fees:
  • Personal coaches average cost is ~£125 per hour – but this varies wildly; experienced coaches tend to be north of £150, while you’ll find a bunch of cheaper ones on directories around £50ish.
  • Corporate coaches rates are much more expensive, at ~£260 per hour. This is typical: corporate coaching tends to be double personal coaching rates in all locales.
• Western Europe is usually cheaper than the UK:
  • Personal coaching fees appear to be slightly higher than the UK, ~£140 per hour. But this data is all from the more expensive professional coaches in major surveys. I didn’t analyse cheaper local directory sources, which were what pulled the UK rates down. 
  • Corporate coaching prices are slightly cheaper than UK rates, averaging ~£250 per hour – again, roughly double the cost of personal coaching
• Global coaching rates vary even more wildly, as you’d expect. America tends to be higher than Europe or UK – but most other places are lower:
  • Personal coaching tends to average out at  ~£150 
  • Corporate coaching is again close to double personal coaching at ~£270

Coaching types 

Different data sources split their definitions in different ways, so here’s what I’ve used as a rule of thumb:

• ‘Personal’ coaching here means coaching that’s self funded rather than paid for by a company. The topic tends to be personal rather than professional – eg, life, relationship or career coaching.
• ‘Corporate’ coaching usually means that an organisation is paying for it. The topics tend to focus on professional matters or benefit the business – eg, executive, leadership or professional coaching.

Warning for coaches:

If you’re thinking of  becoming a coach based on reckoning over £150 per hour for 40 hours a week =  £lovely money£ – brace yourself for disappointment. Most coaches:

• Do coaching on a part time basis, with around 10-12 hours a week of coaching time. Almost all have other sources of income. The ICF 2023 reckons Western European average income from coaching is around $52/ ~£41k – very nice, but not amazing wealth
• Spend about 2 hours on non-chargeable things like marketing and admin, for every one hour they spend coaching. So that £150 per hour winds up being more like £50
• Charge far less for the first years of working, and have fewer hours. Most coaches take a few years to get to a good rate and number of clients. Around 10 years coaching tends to see solid income and hours. 

Summary table of all the rates and their sources

	PERSONAL	Study currency	~GBP	CORPORATE	Study currency	~GBP
UK	Henley ’21	$200	£160	Henley ’21	$323	£260
	Life coach directory		£90
	Average		£125	Average		£260
Western Europe	Henley Europe ’17 (adjusted for inflation)	€154	£130	Henley Europe ’17 (adjusted for inflation)	€273	£240
	Henley 21 (5 countries)	$151	£120	Henley 21 (5 countries)	$225	£180
	ICF 2023 (extrapolated)	$203	£160	ICF 2023 (extrapolated)	$422	£330
	Average		£140	Average		£250
Global	ICF 2023 (extrapolated)	$186	£150	ICF 2023 (extrapolated)	$386	£310
	ICF 2023 (by specialization)	$163	£130	ICF 2023 (by specialization)	$274	£220
	Henley 21 (5 countries)	$211	£170	Henley 21 (5 countries)	$343	£270
	Average		£150	Average		£270

UK Personal coach prices

Henley College’s Future Trends in Coaching 2021 has a  per-country analysis (page 14 of the study). This shows the UK has $200 / ~£160 per hour average charge per hour, with data from almost 400 UK-based coaches. 

The Life Coach Directory has over 1100 UK life coaches, mostly with fee information. Reviewing the details of 50 of these coaches, I concluded ~£90 per hour was the average for my sample. 

Looking across both data sources, the average is ~£125 per hour.

It’s noticeable that one source is almost twice the other. This is because they’re looking at two different coaching populations. Henley was mostly by older, qualified, highly experienced coaches; the Directory includes a number of less experienced, younger coaches. ICF global data indicates that yes, this makes a huge difference. Inexperienced coaches and younger coaches tend to charge about half the amount of older, experienced coaches.

UK Corporate coach / Professional Prices

Henley’s Future Trends in Coaching 2021 indicate that UK corporate rates are typically $323 (~£260) per hour. 

Henley also did a breakdown in “The State of Play in Coaching in the UK 2018” (p8). This compares England, Wales and Scotland regional corporate rates.

• Wales is by far the cheapest area for corporate coaching, with a majority under €50 per hour. 
• England has a strong majority (28%) in the €2-400 rate – four times the Welsh price! 
• Scotland has a fairly even spread across all bands from €50 through to €600.
• Ireland (covered separately, in “The State of Play in Irish Coaching 2018”), is similar to England, with an even larger majority (40%) at the €2-400 rate

European Personal coach Rates

Henley’s The State of Play in European Coaching and Mentoring 2017  covered  >1700 coaches around 45 European countries. Their analysis focuses on ranges (eg: 590 coaches responded that they charged between €51 and €100) so I did a hacky adjustment based on the midpoints (eg 590 coaches at €75). To hack it even further, I’ve assumed that rates are 20% higher than in 2017 after several, hmmm, interesting years (the Bank of England’s inflation calculator suggests 27% over this period). So I wound up with a private coaching average of  €154 or ~£130 per hour. But this is a rather (very!) hacky number.

A better source is the 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study which gave averages across all Western Europe (including UK) for coaching (both personal and corporate) as $312 / ~£250. As ICF’s global figures show a gap of almost 70% between personal and corporate, you’d expect personal coaching to be 35% lower than this average – so ~$203 / ~£160. Still pretty hacky, though.

However – both hacky numbers are fairly consistent with Henley’s more recent  Future Trends in Coaching 2021 (p14). This covers just 5 Western European countries (including UK). But for personal coaching in these 5 countries, the average is $151 / ~£120. 

From all the above, personal coaching across Western Europe inc UK averages around ~£140 per hour

Per-country breakdown for personal coaching rates in Europe:

Country	USD	GBP
UK	$200	£158
Germany	$149	£118
Ireland	$143	£113
Italy	$139	£110
Belgium	$125	£99
European average	$151	£120

European Corporate / Business coach Fees

Henley’s The State of Play in European Coaching and Mentoring 2017 gives average rates across all Europe for business-sponsored coaching. Using the same hacky calculation based on midpoints of their ranges, and allowing 20% for inflation since 2017, the current equivalent is likely to be €273 / ~£240

This is a long way below my extrapolated number from the 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study. Again, I used the same hacky approach as for personal coaching – the average (both personal and corporate) across all Western Europe was $312 / ~£250; the gap of almost 70% between personal and corporate, suggests that corporate coaching would be 35% higher than this average – so $422 or  ~£330.

And both are rather inconsistent with Henley’s recent-ish Future Trends in Coaching 2021. Again, this covers just 5 European countries (including UK), but gives an average for business-sponsored coaching of €225 / ~£180. 

Across all three sources, you get an average rate of ~£250 per hour for professional coaching – fairly close to double personal rates.

Per-country breakdown for corporate coaching rates in Europe:

Country	USD	GBP
UK	$323	£256
Germany	$210	£166
Ireland	$229	£181
Italy	$198	£157
Belgium	$174	£138
European average	$227	£180

Global Personal coaching Prices

As before – I used a hacky extrapolation from the  2023 ICF Global Coaching Study – as the global rate for all regions (including Western Europe) is $286, and as personal coaching is likely 35% below this average, this gives a hacky estimate of personal coaching rate globally  as being $186 / ~£150. 

The 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study also has a section on global rates by coaching specialisation. I’ve used the data for their ‘personal’ specializations such as Career, “Life, vision & enhancement”, etc, to work out a more accurate global ‘personal’ coaching rate as $163 / ~£130 per hour.

Henley’s  Future Trends in Coaching 2021 (p14) covers just 5 more countries outside Western Europe. This is far less comprehensive than the ICF’s 141 countries, and is skewed to the expensive countries (so I ignored their Western Europe rates in this case). However, it offers a useful additional snapshot of average rates, suggesting that $211 or ~£170 is a global average – if you look at the more expensive countries.

Between the three sets of data, global personal coach prices average about ~£150.

Per-country breakdown for ‘global’ personal coaching rates 

2021 future trends personal	USD	GBP
USA	$274	£238
Australia	$254	£220
India	$230	£199
South Africa	$134	£116
Czech Rep	$161	£140
Average	$211	£183

Global Corporate coaching Rates 

Again – using the 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study to extrapolate from the global mixture of both personal and corporate rates at $286, with the corporate coaching rate at 35% above this average, gives us a corporate coaching rate $386 / ~£310. 

Also again using 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study section on global rates by coaching specialisation (life, executive, etc) gives a global corporate coaching rate of  $274 / ~£220 per hour for specialisations such as Executive, Business, Leadership etc

And again, Henley’s Future Trends in Coaching 2021 covers a few other, mostly wealthy countries, to give a useful additional snapshot of average rates. This indicates $343 or ~£270 is a global average – for wealthy countries, excluding Western Europe/UK in this case. 

More detail below, but between the three data sources, corporate coaching averages out globally at ~£270 – almost twice the personal coaching rate.

Per-country breakdown for ‘global’ corporate / business coach fees 

2021 future trends corporate	USD	GBP
USA	$501	£397
Australia	$413	£327
India	$339	£268
South Africa	$199	£158
Czech Rep	$261	£207
Average	$343	£271

Summary of coach prices

Personal coach prices vary a lot – typically, more experienced coaches will be more expensive. In the UK, you might find affordable life coaches around £50 per hour at cheapest, but the more experienced will often charge over £150. Fees around Western Europe are fairly similar to the UK, but Eastern Europe tends to be cheaper, as are Latin America and the Caribbean if you’re willing to look further afield. However, with luck, you might find less experienced coaches at a low rate even in the UK who suit you perfectly. Try doing chemistry calls with a few and see who you gel with.

Professional / corporate coach rates tend to be double the price of personal coaches. They generally follow similar global variance around the regions. If you’re outsourcing, South Africa is worth noting as one of the lowest priced individual countries for which I found pricing.

Appendix: Data notes

Numbers:

• I’ve defined Europe in ways that overlapped across the different data sources (so excluded Eastern European countries; apologies!). Also, I had to ‘doublecount’ so global figures include Western Europe and UK, and Western Europe includes UK, in most cases.
• Most data sources quote USD or Euros so GBP equivalent varies with exchange rate – this uses the rates on 3 Jan 2023. And I’ve rounded the £ numbers in all cases, hence using the tilde:~£. 

Sources: 

• I purchased the full version of the 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study, but the executive summary is freely available to download from the same page. Note that the ICF ‘extrapolated’ numbers are based on their PPP ‘purchasing power parity’ rates rather than direct USD hourly rate. This reflects more accurately how those dollars translate based on local cost of living – $100 is a hostel night in London but a 5* hotel in Thailand.
• My 2022 article used the Life Coach Directory price filters for analysis. This time, I decided that was too unreliable – as the rates you see when you look at a coach’s page tend to vary a lot from where they sit in the results. So instead, I did a deep dive into 50 coaches across a range of price bands, and reviewed all the fee details each coach provided to work out the charge for a single hour, ignoring packages and discounts. Note that while other UK directory services like Bark also appear to have articles discussing coaching prices, I ignored them here. They’re not a reliable data source as they’re not specialised in coaching, they have no requirements around qualifications, and they’re incentivised to present the lowest prices they can.
• Henley College provide several data sources available freely to all – Future Trends in Coaching 2021, The State of Play in Coaching in the UK 2018 and The State of Play in Irish Coaching 2018