UK Film Crew Cost Calculator
Pick your roles, set your days, get a realistic number. No more guessing what a full UK crew actually costs before you request a quote.
- Crew day rates vary by role, experience and production budget band, so there's no single "going rate" for a camera operator or gaffer.
- Published guide rates (like the ones behind the calculator above) are minimums crew negotiate from, not fixed prices.
- Day rates don't include overtime, travel, box rental or kit hire. Build those into your budget separately.
- The calculator above gives you a realistic starting number. For an actual booking, you still need a quote.
Budgeting a crew is one of the trickiest parts of planning a shoot.
Kit has a day rate on a product page. Crew doesn't, because a camera operator's rate depends on who they are, what the job is, and what the production can afford.
That's exactly why we built the calculator above: to turn that guesswork into a realistic starting number, using the same guide rates crew themselves negotiate from.
Here's what's actually going on behind those numbers, and how to use them properly.
Why Do Crew Day Rates Vary So Much?
Crew day rates vary because they're tied to production budget bands, not a flat industry rate.
A camera operator on a low-budget TV drama and the same camera operator on a major feature film are working to two different rate cards, even on the same day.
Bectu, the union that represents most UK film and TV crew, publishes branch-by-branch guide rates precisely because there's no single number that applies everywhere.
Experience matters too. A trainee and a head of department doing adjacent jobs on the same production will sit at opposite ends of the same rate card.
That's why the calculator above gives you a low, mid and high band per role rather than one number: pick the tier that matches the scale of your shoot.
What's Included in a Day Rate (and What Isn't)
A published day rate covers labour for a standard working day, and nothing else. It doesn't include:
- Overtime, which kicks in once a shoot runs past the standard hours (usually 10 or 11 hours depending on the agreement)
- Travel time and expenses
- Box rental or kit allowance, a fee some crew charge for supplying their own tools or equipment
- Holiday pay treatment, which varies by department and agreement
This is the single most common budgeting mistake on smaller productions: multiplying a day rate by the number of shoot days and stopping there.
If your shoot runs long, involves travel, or needs crew to bring their own gear, build that into your number separately.
How Production Budget Bands Work
Most crew rate cards are split into bands, usually based on the production's total budget or per-episode budget.
A low-budget band might cover anything under £1.25m, while a major feature or high-end streaming budget sits at the top.
The calculator above simplifies this into low, mid and high tiers so you don't need to know which exact band your shoot falls into. As a rule of thumb:
- Low: student films, low-budget indie productions, small brand or social content
- Mid: mid-budget commercials, branded content, mid-size productions
- High: high-end commercials, broadcast drama, well-funded productions
Which Roles Do You Actually Need?
Not every shoot needs a full crew. A one-day interview shoot might need just a camera operator and a sound recordist.
A fashion show or multi-camera production pulls in far more: a director, 1st AD, camera operators and assistants, a gaffer and lighting technicians, sound, and often costume and hair & makeup support too.
The honest answer is that it depends on the shoot, and this is exactly the kind of thing worth talking through before you book anything.
We work with productions at every scale, from a single camera operator to a full crew across multiple departments, and we're always happy to walk through what a specific shoot actually needs rather than what a generic list says it needs.
How to Use the Crew Day Rate Calculator
- Pick a department from the pills at the top (camera, sound, lighting, and so on).
- Choose a role, set the budget tier that matches your production, and use the quantity stepper if you need more than one of the same role (three grips, two camera assistants).
- Add it to your budget, then repeat for every role your shoot needs. Use the "shoot length" control to set the day count for everyone at once, or adjust individual roles if some are only needed for part of the shoot.
The running total updates as you go, and you can copy or email the breakdown once you're done.
What This Calculator Doesn't Cover
This tool gives you a labour estimate, not a quote. It doesn't include VAT, travel, overtime, box rental, insurance, or the cost of equipment and studio space, which are quoted separately depending on what your production actually needs.
If you'd rather skip the spreadsheet entirely, we can source crew directly from people we've worked with for years, so quality and reliability aren't a gamble.
It's often quicker than assembling a crew role by role, and if you're also hiring equipment for the same shoot, everything gets quoted together rather than juggling separate suppliers.
That's the model we built the business around.
When fashion designer John Richmond needed both kit and crew for his Fall 2026 show, we worked directly with his team to bring the vision to life, supplying both from one point of contact.
That's the difference between budgeting a crew yourself and having someone who does it every week handle it for you.
Request a quote and tell us what you're shooting. We'll help you work out exactly who you need.
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