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Part-Time Jobs in the UK for Indian Students: 2026
- Last Updated on: August 29, 2026 by
- Shiva Sai Bejawada
From April 2026, pay for part-time jobs in UK for Indian students starts at a legal floor of GBP 12.71 an hour if you are 21 or over, and GBP 10.85 at 18 to 20, per the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates, and most student-facing roles sit within about a pound of it. You’ve probably read a wide hourly range with no source behind it. Here you get Office for National Statistics medians across 12 roles, five universities’ own published campus rates, and the London gap measured in pence. Weigh it against your full cost of studying in the UK. The table below starts with the best payer.
Written by
Senior Counsellor (British Council Certified) -UK & Ireland
Shiva Sai Bejawada is a British Council Certified overseas-education counsellor at AOEC India who guides Indian students through UK and Ireland university selection, admissions, and student visa documentation.
6 Years, 96% visa approval rate 
Reviewed by
Managing Director
Mr. Kongara Sridhar, Director of AOEC India, has over 12 years of experience in overseas education consulting, admissions, and student visa guidance.
Over 12 years Experience Key Takeaways
- Teaching assistant leads at GBP 14.48 an hour (about INR 1,876); waiting and bar work pay GBP 12.21 (about INR 1,582).
- Every ONS figure here is April 2025, when the legal floor was GBP 12.21. It is now GBP 12.71 at 21 and over (about INR 1,647), GBP 10.85 at 18 to 20.
- Campus ambassador rates at five universities run GBP 12.71 to GBP 15.18 (about INR 1,647 to 1,967).
- GBP 13.68 inclusive of holiday pay (about INR 1,773) is worth less per hour than GBP 13.09 plus it.
- London pays 58 pence more an hour (about INR 75) on a waiting job than the West Midlands.
- Delivery riding is self-employment and banned at any hours. You can start work before your National Insurance number arrives; get a share code first.
Table of Contents
What part-time jobs in the UK pay an hour, role by role
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Which part-time jobs your Student visa actually allows
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Campus jobs pay more than the high street
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Part-time job pay in London versus the West Midlands
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Documents you need before your first UK payslip
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Frequently Asked Questions
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What part-time jobs in the UK pay an hour, role by role
In April 2025, the median part-time waiter or waitress in the UK earned GBP 12.21 an hour (about INR 1,582). That was the National Living Wage that month (Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 14.6a). Student roles cluster within pennies of that floor, so your employer matters more than your job title.
Every figure below comes from that survey, known as ASHE, in its Employee earnings in the UK: 2025 release, which measures the pay period including 30 April 2025. ONS classes the 2025 estimates as provisional. Median hourly earnings excluding overtime means the middle worker’s earnings, which are not strictly limited to basic contractual pay. In the year to March 2026, the legal minimum for workers aged 21 and over was GBP 12.21 an hour, so read each row against that number, not the 2026 floor.
| Role | Median hourly pay (GBP) | Top tenth earn at least (GBP) |
|---|---|---|
| Teaching assistant | 14.48 (INR 1,876) | 19.39 (INR 2,512) |
| Care worker | 13.50 (INR 1,749) | 18.73 (INR 2,427) |
| Retail cashier | 13.32 (INR 1,726) | 15.06 (INR 1,951) |
| Warehouse operative | 13.18 (INR 1,708) | 17.11 (INR 2,217) |
| Sports and leisure assistant | 13.02 (INR 1,687) | Suppressed by ONS |
| Receptionist | 12.73 (INR 1,649) | 15.54 (INR 2,014) |
| Customer service | 12.71 (INR 1,647) | 16.20 (INR 2,099) |
| Cleaner | 12.60 (INR 1,633) | 16.53 (INR 2,142) |
| Sales and retail assistant | 12.50 (INR 1,620) | 14.69 (INR 1,903) |
| Kitchen and catering assistant | 12.31 (INR 1,595) | 15.61 (INR 2,023) |
| Waiter or waitress | 12.21 (INR 1,582) | 15.02 (INR 1,946) |
| Bar staff | 12.21 (INR 1,582) | 14.42 (INR 1,868) |
| All part-time jobs, every occupation | 14.11 (INR 1,828) | Benchmark row |
All INR conversions use the live Google-published rate captured on 2026-08-28: GBP 1 is about INR 129.57. Rates fluctuate intraday; figures are indicative.
Bar staff land on the same GBP 12.21, the legal minimum on the day ONS measured. For anyone weighing part-time jobs in UK for Indian students, that is the number that matters: the typical hospitality job pays the floor and nothing above it. The premium sits in the tail and on campus. A waiter in the top tenth earned GBP 15.02, and a teaching assistant’s median beat every hospitality role outright. Chase the employer, not the job title. And twenty term-time hours at the hospitality median isn’t a living; it’s grocery and travel money, not tuition money.
Which part-time jobs your Student visa actually allows
Which roles you can legally take depends on your course, not on the advert. If you’re here to study in the UK on the Student route, Appendix Student, the part of the Immigration Rules covering student visas, sets three tiers of work rights at paragraph ST 26.1:
- A full-time course at degree level or above, sponsored by a university with a track record of compliance, a Home Office rating your university either holds or does not: 20 hours per week during term-time.
- A full-time course below degree level with that same kind of sponsor: 10 hours per week during term-time.
- All other study, including all part-time study: no employment permitted. On a part-time course you have no work rights at all, so check your CAS (Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies) before you apply for anything.
Your visa also bans self-employment completely, however few hours you plan to ride. That puts Deliveroo and Uber Eats out of reach: delivery riding is self-employment, barred outright rather than capped. The rule is ST 26.5. For the 2026-27 tax year, you pay 8% National Insurance on earnings between GBP 242 and GBP 967 a week. Below GBP 242 you pay none, and twenty hours at hospitality rates lands you just over that line. The full tax and hours arithmetic sits in the UK minimum wage rules for international students.
Campus jobs pay more than the high street
Your university is usually the best-paying employer within walking distance, and it is the one employer that already knows your term dates. Student ambassador schemes staff open days, campus tours and school visits, and the rates below are as published by each university in 2026.
| University | Advertised hourly rate | What the rate includes |
|---|---|---|
| Imperial College London | GBP 15.18 (INR 1,967) | Basic pay; GBP 17.01 (INR 2,204) including holiday pay |
| University of Exeter | GBP 15.07 (INR 1,953) | GBP 13.45 basic (INR 1,743) plus GBP 1.62 holiday pay |
| City St George’s, University of London | GBP 12.71 ambassador (INR 1,647); GBP 13.88 tutor (INR 1,798) | Plus holiday pay |
| University of Suffolk | GBP 13.68 (INR 1,773) | Inclusive of holiday pay |
| University of York | GBP 13.09 (INR 1,696) | Plus holiday pay |
Two advertised rates are not comparable until you check which side of holiday pay they sit on. Suffolk’s GBP 13.68 is inclusive of holiday pay. York’s GBP 13.09 is plus holiday pay, so York is worth more per hour actually worked despite the smaller headline number. Exeter shows the arithmetic in the open, splitting its rate into GBP 13.45 basic and GBP 1.62 holiday pay. As at August 2026, that basic figure is exactly the real Living Wage of GBP 13.45 across the UK, the voluntary rate employers opt into. Ask which side any campus rate sits on before you accept the shift.
Start with your university’s careers or employability team, not a job board. UCAS says the same in its guidance on part-time jobs for international students in the UK. University boards such as Unitemps come next, then Indeed and LinkedIn. Rank campus above the high street even when the headline numbers look close, because campus jobs can pay above the statutory minimum wage. The highest-paying jobs in the UK for Indians are a different conversation.
Part-time job pay in London versus the West Midlands
The London premium on student work is far smaller than the rent gap that comes with it. On a waiting job it is 58 pence an hour. That’s the entire difference between a waiting job in London and one in the West Midlands, and it should settle any argument about moving south for work.
| Role | London | West Midlands | London premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cleaner | GBP 13.85 (INR 1,795) | GBP 12.52 (INR 1,622) | GBP 1.33 (INR 172) |
| Sales and retail assistant | GBP 13.51 (INR 1,751) | GBP 12.47 (INR 1,616) | GBP 1.04 (INR 135) |
| Waiter or waitress | GBP 12.79 (INR 1,657) | GBP 12.21 (INR 1,582) | GBP 0.58 (INR 75) |
| Care worker | GBP 14.23 (INR 1,844) | GBP 12.77 (INR 1,655) | GBP 1.46 (INR 189) |
Regional medians come from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 15.6a, for the same April 2025 pay period. Care work is the row worth pausing on, because Scotland out-pays London on it. Don’t pick a city for the hourly rate. As at August 2026, the London Living Wage of GBP 14.80 an hour sits well above what a waiting job in London pays. The city’s costs have run ahead of its student wages. Price your rent and travel first in our UK cost of living breakdown.
ONS publishes these medians by region of work, never by city. Birmingham sits inside the West Midlands figure and Manchester inside the North West. No official city-level median exists for any of these occupations, so a city-by-city comparison of student pay measures something the statistics do not. If the cost side is what decides your shortlist, the cheapest UK cities for students are ranked on rent, not on wages.
Documents you need before your first UK payslip
As at August 2026, you don’t need a National Insurance number before you start work. GOV.UK’s guidance on how to apply for a National Insurance number says you can start once you can prove your right to work in the UK, and the number takes up to 4 weeks. So a missing number needn’t delay a September start.
Three things do have to be in place, in this order:
- Generate your share code. A share code is a temporary code from your UK Visas and Immigration account that lets an employer view your visa conditions online. Your employer uses it to check which jobs you may do and how long you can work here. Generate it from Prove your right to work: get a share code online. The Home Office employer’s guide to right to work checks puts its validity at 90 days, so generate it before the interview, not after the offer.
- Apply for the National Insurance number anyway. Do it the week you arrive. The wait sits between you and a correctly taxed payslip, not between you and your first shift.
- Download your term-dates letter. Under the Home Office employer’s guide to right to work checks, your employer must obtain, copy and retain details of your academic term and vacation times. That is a legal duty, not office admin: the employer, not you, faces a civil penalty of up to GBP 60,000 per illegal worker (about INR 77.7 lakh). Turn up with the letter and the paperwork stops being an argument.
Two rules decide whether work counts against your term-time cap, and they point in opposite directions. Unpaid work, including internships, counts towards your 10 or 20 hour term-time working limit, so an unpaid marketing internship eats the same hours a paid bar shift would. Work on an assessed placement that is an integral part of your course does not count, so a placement module leaves your cap intact. Get these the wrong way round and you’ll either turn down a placement you could have taken, or overshoot your hours on work nobody was paying you for.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How accurate are these hourly pay figures?
ONS builds the survey from employer payroll returns for a 1% sample of employees, with an achieved sample of 174,000 in 2025. It measures pay that was actually paid rather than pay that was advertised, which is why these medians sit below advertised ranges.
Will my first job pay the median?
Probably not. The median is the middle of everyone doing that job part-time, including people who have done it for years. A first UK job with no local experience usually starts nearer the legal floor. Use the median to judge whether an advert is fair, not to predict your own offer.
Can I ride for Deliveroo or Uber Eats between lectures?
No. Delivery riding is self-employment, and your Student route permission bars self-employment outright. It is not capped at 20 hours; it is not allowed at all. The same reasoning rules out freelance tutoring or design work that you invoice for yourself.
What should I have ready before a job interview?
Your share code and your term-dates letter. Generate the share code from your UK Visas and Immigration account, and download the term-dates letter from your student portal or registry. Turning up with both means the employer can run the right to work check on the spot instead of chasing you for a week.
Do the ONS medians include holiday pay?
No. The ONS medians are hourly earnings excluding overtime, so holiday pay sits on top or inside depending on the contract. Campus adverts usually say which. High-street adverts often do not. Ask before you accept, because the same headline number can be worth two different amounts.
Sources
Official sources first, then reputable third-party.
- GOV.UK, Immigration Rules Appendix Student (Aug 2026), retrieved 28 Aug 2026, gov.uk
- GOV.UK, Employer’s guide to right to work checks (Jul 2026), retrieved 28 Aug 2026, gov.uk
- GOV.UK, National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates (Apr 2026), retrieved 28 Aug 2026, gov.uk
- GOV.UK, National Insurance: how much you pay (Apr 2026), retrieved 28 Aug 2026, gov.uk
- GOV.UK, Apply for a National Insurance number, retrieved 28 Aug 2026, gov.uk
- GOV.UK, Prove your right to work to an employer: Get a share code online, retrieved 28 Aug 2026, gov.uk
- Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 14.6a Hourly pay – Excluding overtime – For part-time employee jobs (Oct 2025), retrieved 28 Aug 2026, ons.gov.uk
- Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 15.6a Hourly pay – Excluding overtime – For part-time employee jobs (Oct 2025), retrieved 28 Aug 2026, ons.gov.uk
- Office for National Statistics, Employee earnings in the UK: 2025 (Oct 2025), retrieved 28 Aug 2026, ons.gov.uk
- UCAS, Part-time jobs for international students in the UK, retrieved 28 Aug 2026, ucas.com
- Imperial College London, Recruitment and Outreach Student Ambassadors, retrieved 28 Aug 2026, imperial.ac.uk
- University of Exeter, University of Exeter Student Ambassador Scheme, retrieved 28 Aug 2026, exeter.ac.uk
- University of York, Become a Student Ambassador, retrieved 28 Aug 2026, york.ac.uk
- University of Suffolk, Student Ambassador Scheme, retrieved 28 Aug 2026, uos.ac.uk
- City St George’s, University of London, Part Time Jobs – Student Hub, retrieved 28 Aug 2026, citystgeorges.ac.uk
- Living Wage Foundation, What is the real Living Wage? (Oct 2025), retrieved 28 Aug 2026, livingwage.org.uk
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