These are the 10 most extortionately expensive UK private schools in 2024

While you struggle to cope with the rising cost of a meal deal in Tesco, some eleven-year-olds have salmon omelettes personally prepared by a chef in 500-year-old fortress. Several of the UK’s most expensive private schools cost over £50,000 a year in 2024, and it’s deeply disturbing.

Each year, Spear’s magazine works out what the most expensive private schools in the world are. So, here are the most harrowingly expensive UK private schools in 2024. (The word “HARROWingly” was very intentional and witty wordplay).

The fees at lots of these schools can very drastically depending on what age the child is, and if they’re a day pupil, a weekly boarder, a full boarder or an international boarder. For the sake of comparison, the prices in each subheading are for full boarders in sixth form, per year.

So, here are the ten most expensive UK private schools in 2024.

10. Winchester College – £51,855

The school’s motto “Manners Makyth Man” has remained unchanged since 1381. The attitudes of its pupils haven’t changed much since then, either. Winchester College is also the academic institution responsible for Rishi Sunak. For hundreds of years, it was a full boarding school and only for boys. They’ve recently started allowing a few day pupils and a handful of girls. I feel sorry for them. The boarding fees are £51,855, and the day fees are only a little bit cheaper at £38,367.

9. Wellington College – £52,110

Plenty of space for croquet
(Credit: RTPeat via Creative Commons)

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This school is for rich London kids who aren’t clever enough to get into Westminster. Wellington College’s grounds in Berkshire are 400 acres big. That’s, like, four times the size of Winnie-the-Pooh’s wood. The fees for boarders are £52,110, and the fees for day pupils are £38,100.

8. Westminster School – £52,488

This is one of the most academically rigorous (read: anxiety inducing) schools in the country. 87 per cent of Year Thirteen (sorry, Upper Sixth) students got As or A*s in their A-Levels this year. Boarding at Westminster School in sixth form costs an alarming £52,488. The extra-clever King’s Scholars who get a coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey (yes, really) only have to pay the cheaper day pupil fees in order to be a boarder.

7. Eton College – £52,749

This is (arguably) most famous and the most mocked school in the country. Eton College has spawned more UK prime ministers than any other school, so is surely more responsible for the country’s screw-ups than any other school?

Eton College charges £17,583 per Half. A Half is their stupidly pretentious name for a term. There are three Halves in a year, which I don’t need a  a year education to know isn’t how numbers usually work. I would spend £52,749 a year for my children to stay away from Eton.

6. Gordonstoun – £53,115

No chance of the children encountering any working class riff-raff here!
(Image via Gordonstoun’s YouTube)

This is the school that produced Prince Phillip, King Charles, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, Peter Phillips and Zara Phillips. King Charles famously called it “absolute hell” and sent William and Harry to Eton instead. Gordonstoun is in the middle of the countryside near the sea in north-east Scotland. It’s more known for being character-building than it is for being academic. The pupils have a shooting society and go on sailing trips on the school yacht around the Isle of Skye. Boarding fees for pupils who join at sixth form are £53,115 per year. Day pupils who join younger than that only have to pay £35,280 each year.

=4. Harrow School – £53,550

This mega-rah school costs a HARROWing (see what I did there?) £53,550 a year, plus a load of deposits and additional costs.

Harrow School is a full boys’ boarding school – meaning that the pupils aren’t really allowed to leave at the weekends, to make them even further removed from the general population.

=4. Sevenoaks School – £53,550

If I shelled out that much money on school fees, I’d expect the school play to be somewhere like this
(Credit: Jedzi via Creative Commons)

This school is in Kent. Sevenoaks School‘s main personality trait is that the sixth form students don’t do A-Levels. Instead, they have to take the International Baccalaureate (IB) – an overly complicated system which makes you take more subjects and do community work. They also have to go to school on Saturdays. Horrifying.

Boarders who join at sixth form have to pay £53,550. The rest only pay £49,359. Day pupils have to pay £34,896 or £30,729.

3. Concord College – £55,200

The website for Concord College says, “Boarding fees from 1 September 2024 are £18,400 per term. These fees are exclusive of any applicable taxes.” So, parents might end up paying more than that once the government starts charging VAT on fees. The fees for day pupils are £19,200 a year, and the fees for boarders are £55,200. These fees don’t include the cost of textbooks, exams or trips.

Despite being one of the most expensive private schools in the UK, Concord College doesn’t make it into the top 10 private schools for A-Level results. Parents must be paying for the fancy facilities on the 73 acre campus more than academic success.

2. Brighton College – £55,470

Brighton College is known for being way more “woke” than other old boarding schools. It was ahead of other bougie private schools for allowing girls to wear trousers, and last year it abolished the terms “girls’ uniform” and “boys’ uniform” to become more inclusive of non-binary pupils. The fees there very quite a lot depending on how old the teenager is, and how much time they actually spend at the school. The parents of a Year Seven day pupil have to cough up £23,160 each year, but the parents of a full boarder in sixth form have to pay £55,470. Plus a £8,000 deposit.

1. Cheltenham Ladies’ College – £61,470

This all girls’ school is in the Cotswolds. It takes the prize for the most expensive of the UK private schools on this list in 2024. About 80 per cent of pupils at Cheltenham Ladies’ College are boarders. Sixth form boarders who didn’t do their GCSEs at the school have to pay £61,470 a year. The boarding fees for the rest of the school are a mildly better value £55,350.

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Feature image of Cheltenham Ladies’ College via Creative Commons.