How much does a freelance Laravel developer cost in the UK?

I charge £60 per hour for Laravel development and consultancy. A standard working day is eight hours, so my day rate is £480.

The minimum engagement is one day. A one-day booking can make sense for consultation, a technical review, or a clear fix, but most delivery work needs a larger block to understand the app, make the change properly, and leave useful notes behind.

Before any time is scheduled, we agree what you are booking, what the work is meant to achieve, and what it will cost.

For example project lengths and the contractor comparison, see the pricing page.

Yes. My minimum booking is one day, which costs £480.

That is mostly a practical limit. Half-day bookings tend to create the same setup, context, scheduling, and handover overhead as a full day, and I cannot reliably fill the other half of the day with another client.

I do not usually encourage one-day bookings for meaningful build work. They are useful for consultation, a second opinion, a focused review, or a small piece of support. If the work is too small for a paid engagement, I will say so rather than stretching it to fit.

Project cost depends on scope, risk, and how much useful context already exists. A one-day review costs £480. Four full-time weeks at my rate is 160 hours, or 20 days, which costs £9,600. Twelve full-time weeks is 480 hours, or 60 days, which costs £28,800.

Those examples are there to make the maths obvious. They are not fixed prices for every Laravel project. A small feature in a well-maintained app may be quick. The same feature in an inherited app with unclear data, missing tests, and fragile deployments may need discovery and stabilisation before the build work is sensible.

Before I suggest a likely shape, I will want to understand the application, the outcome you need, the systems involved, and what could make the work risky.

It can be, if you need senior Laravel help in clear blocks rather than continuous full-time development.

That is the main advantage of a contractor. You can bring me in when there is a defined problem to solve, then stop, extend, or come back later depending on what the business needs. You are not committing to salary, recruitment, equipment, management time, and ongoing employment costs before you know how much work there really is.

This is useful for inherited Laravel apps, internal tools, risky modernisation work, API integrations, and focused backlogs. It is not a promise that contracting is always cheaper. If you need the same person owning product and code every week for the foreseeable future, hiring a full-time senior developer may be the better answer.

If your need comes in waves, repeat contract work can give you continuity without committing to a permanent hire too early.

Start with a short message about the app, the work you need, and the rough timing. I will come back with my availability, the likely engagement shape, and any questions that need answering before dates are held.

For consultation or a focused review, that might be a single day. For build, modernisation, or support work, it is usually better to agree the first block, the decision points, and the handover expectations before work starts.

For repeat work, I prefer clear blocks over vague retainers. You should know what time is being booked, what problem it is for, and how we will decide whether more time makes sense.