UK foster carer pay by council 2026-27: what 25 councils publish

Fostering Today has now published the 2026-27 foster carer allowances for 25 UK councils, each taken from the council's own website, committee papers or rate schedules and linked to that source on our council pages. Twenty of the councils are in England and five in Scotland. This summary brings those pages together so prospective carers, current carers and anyone writing about fostering can compare what councils say they pay. We will update it as more councils are added.

The weekly allowance is the money paid for each child's day-to-day costs, and it rises with age. Across the 23 councils that publish it as a separate figure, the lowest rate for the youngest age band is £176 a week, paid by Calderdale and Northumberland for children up to two, and the highest is £210 a week, paid by Kent for children under two. For the oldest children, seven councils (Calderdale, Leicester, Newcastle, Northumberland, Rochdale, Wakefield and Walsall) pay £267 a week and Staffordshire pays £267.50, while Coventry pays £337.40 and Lincolnshire £331.66 for young people aged 16 and over. The gap between £267 and £337.40 is £70.40 a week for a teenager in the same age band, or £3,660.80 over a year.

Two councils publish a single weekly total that combines the child's allowance with the carer's reward or professional fee instead of listing them separately. Bracknell Forest's Tier 1 totals run from £304.83 to £480.34 a week depending on the child's age, and Thurrock's from £415 to £516 at its standard Care Skills rate and up to £568 at Care Skills+.

In Scotland, East Ayrshire, Highland, Scottish Borders and Shetland all publish the same three allowance rates, £177.68, £206.71 and £283.35 a week, which Shetland's page notes match the Scottish Recommended Allowance for the year. Aberdeenshire pays more in every age band, from £191.13 to £307.79 a week.

Fees are where councils differ most. Nineteen of the 25 publish a weekly fee, skills or reward payment for mainstream carers on top of the allowance; two publish combined totals; Aberdeenshire pays an annual skills payment starting at £10,431.21 for newly approved carers; Highland's schedule shows fees only for specialist and intensive carers; and the pages for Lincolnshire and Shetland list no fee. Starting levels vary widely: Leicester's Level 1 payment for newly approved carers is £50 a week per child, Wakefield's Skill Level 1 is £53 and Central Bedfordshire's first tier is £100, while Croydon's entry-level skills fee is £325 a week. Several councils, including Bristol and Staffordshire, pay no fee at their first level.

Each council's page on Fostering Today shows its full age bands, fee levels and extras such as birthday, holiday and festival payments, with the date we checked it. Age bands and fee structures are not the same from one council to the next, so the fairest comparison is the full table for the area you live in, and the fostering team can confirm what would apply to you. Our pay calculator puts council and agency figures side by side.