Average Cost of a School Uniform 2026

The basic school uniform including a pair of school shoes and trainers costs around £389 per pupil on average—but prices range significantly depending on if your school requires school branding (and you have flexibility on where to shop) and the age of your child, with parents paying anywhere from ~£150 to £500 or more to buy school clothes and shoes for their child. Read below to learn more about average prices for school uniform by age and gender.

• Average cost of school uniforms
• How branding impacts the cost of a school uniform
• The minimum you could pay for a cheap school uniform
• School uniform cost, by item

Average Cost of School Uniforms

According to a recent government poll of over 1,000 households, the average cost of a school uniform is £389 in total, for both the main uniform and the PE kit, across both primary and secondary schools.

For primary school children, the average total uniform cost is £343 (~£233 for the main uniform and £119 for PE kit).

For secondary school students, the average total uniform cost is £442 (~£278 for the main uniform and £171 for PE kit).

Actual school uniform costs vary widely depending on factors like age, what items are required by the school, whether or not branded items are on the list and if items must be purchased at school or a designated shop. Those needing to buy uniform emblazoned with the school logo or other branding will most certainly pay even more.

Extra cost of branded school uniforms

Branded items typically must be purchased from school or a designated shop—and they cost more. In some cases, a lot more. Branding not only refers to logos, but can incorporate details like coloured piping on a blazer or high-end specialist sports gear for match days.

How much extra do branded items cost parents per year? To find out, NimbleFins ran some calculations looking at recent poll data to get a sense of how much extra it costs to buy school uniforms from school or a designated shop (typical sources for branded items), instead of buying from anywhere (like a large retail chain).

NimbleFins estimates that it costs £119 extra on average to dress the typical child from a school or designated shop (e.g. with branded items), compared to a typical cost of buying from anywhere. These figures reflect the main school uniform and PE kits. That means buying from school or a designated shop costs around 35% more than shopping around.

But it's possible for the difference between branded and unbranded to be even greater than £119.

Firstly, branded items can be even more expensive than implied by the "all items have to be bought from school/ designated shop" figures above.

For example, an Eaton House Belgravia blazer from Billings & Edmunds ranges from £106 to £119. That site tends to sell higher-end uniforms to London-based schools, at higher prices. Compare that to around £20 for an unbranded blazer from a larger retail chain or around £30 from a cheaper school uniform specialist, and you're talking a 4X - 5X price premium for a branded item vs cheapest available.

Secondly, parents may be able to spend even less than the "items can be bought anywhere" figures above, if they shop for unbranded items at the cheapest retail chains like TU and George at Asda (see our comparison article here). Doing do can further widen the gap between the cost of an unbranded vs branded uniform.

But let's look further into the price difference between branded and unbranded for some specific items. We won't use private school branding, but keep in mind that comes at even a higher premium. Instead, we'll look at more affordable branding from a company like Price & Buckland, which caters to many state-funded schools. Note, these prices can still reach more than double the price of cheap, unbranded retail options for some items. It's usually the cheaper items like PE shirts that come with a higher % mark-up for branding, while more expensive items like blazers have a lower % markup for branding—probably not a surprise as a) adding a few quid for branding has a larger % impact on a cheaper item than a more expensive item and b) consumers are more likely to absorb a higher % increase if the overall £ price is on the lower side (e.g. a £7 item vs a £28 item).

Below we highlight prices for a few popular items, to show the difference between branding (even lower-priced, state school branding, not London private school branding) and being able to shop around for cheap options from retailers like Tu and George by Asda.

Minimum school uniform costs

What's the least that a parent can spend on a school uniform? Well, if a parent isn't required to buy school-branded items, can shop anywhere they want, and doesn't need to buy extras like ties, football boots, a blazer and new school bags, they might be able to kit out their child for the new school year for under £100.

Separate NimbleFins analysis of buying a list of cheaper items from a handful of popular, large retailers put the cost of a basic list of primary school clothing to start the year off at under £100 per child at large grocery-related retailers like George at Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's Tu. That's potentially ~£250 less than the average cost of £343 for a primary school uniform as found in the poll mentioned above. So shopping around can really make a difference.

Cost of Junior School Uniform at Major UK Retailers

Note, stock can be an issue at the above-mentioned, affordable retailers.

And remember that "under £100" reflects a basic list of clothing, and other items would be extra if you need them, like a tie, hat, tracksuit, football boots, a new school bag (~£20) or a plain blazer (+£20 - £27 depending on the age). See the full list of items priced in the article on cheapest school uniforms.

Older kids = higher uniform costs

As your child grows, so do the costs of a school uniform. Between age 4 and 11, expect costs of basic clothing to rise by over 50%, as you can see in the following chart that reflects market prices for a very basic uniform from some cheaper, large retailers. Note, girls cost more to dress. While many items are sold unisex (e.g., shirts), you'll find skirts tend to cost a few pounds more than boys' shorts. And if your daughter wears a pinafore, expect to add more to the uniform cost estimate below.

Basic School Uniform Clothing Costs, excluding Shoes and Blazer

We determined these costs by gathering pricing information from six school uniform retailers that offer both online and in-store shopping—George at Asda, Sainsbury’s Tu, M&S, John Lewis, Tesco and Next—in order to calculate average basic uniform costs across ages 4, 7 and 11 for both boys and girls for the following list of items:

Basic Back-to-School Clothing Starter List

Those on a tight budget can pay around 50% less by shopping at retailers offering lower-priced back-to-school products, such as Tu clothing at Sainsbury's, Tesco and George at ASDA. (But Tesco doesn't cater to the older junior school age groups.)

Average Cost of School Shoes

Parents can pay anywhere from £10 to £85 or more for leather school shoes and £10 to £90 for trainers for each child. In addition to the five large retailers mentioned above, three other popular destinations for school shoes are Geox, Clarks and Start Rite. We gathered low and high pricing information for leather school shoes and PE trainers from these 8 brands, in order to determine an average price of £35.3 for PE trainers and £43.3 for leather school shoes. But across the retailers we researched, the average "cheapest" school shoe was roughly £20 per pair of shoes.

How Much do School Shoes Cost?

Average Cost of a School Blazer

Not every child is required to wear a blazer to school. If your child needs one, expect to pay an average of £20 (for younger children) up to £27 (for older junior-school children) for a plain blazer—if they're unbranded. Branded private school blazers can cost over £100. For example, an Eaton House Belgravia blazer from Billings & Edmunds ranges from £106 to £119.

A junior school blazer starts from around £20

Average cost of school uniform, by item

In the following table we've broken down the average cost of each item of clothing from the poll data, as well as showing the % of pupils who need an item and the average number of items purchased.

Cost per Individual Item

These costs reflect the following overall, average per-item costs, number of items purchased and rate of take-up.

While an individual shirt or pair of shorts might only cost a few pounds, the total bill for back-to-school clothes can take a significant chunk out of your household budget. You can read more about the pricing from each individual retailer in our article on Comparing the Cost of a School Uniform.

Methodology

NimbleFins considered two data sources for this article. First, the Cost of School Uniforms Survey 2023 issued by Government Social Research and the Department for Education. This study reflects telephone interviews with 1,207 parents/carers of children aged 4 to 16 attending state funded schools in England. Second, NimbleFins separately priced school uniform items from 1) popular, large retail chains (George at Asda, Sainsbury's Tu, Next, Tesco, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis) to understand the cost of cheap, unbranded school uniform items and 2) a selection of school uniform specialists offering branded items.

For the cheap uniform analysis, where multipacks of clothing were offered (e.g., a pack of 2 shirts instead of just 1), we chose the multipack offer as that was the cheapest available. We standardized prices across retailers by dividing multipack prices by the number of items in the pack, thereby calculating a per-item cost. While clearly no one buys 1.5 packs of shirts (e.g., if, say, 3 shirts were desired), this method gives us a reasonable price. Those buying pinafores instead of skirts for their girls should budget an extra £1.50 - £10.50 per item, depending on retailer.