How much does user research cost in the UK?
"User research" covers everything from five interviews in a fortnight to a three-month discovery, so a single price means very little. What does carry across is how the number is built: researcher days, recruitment, and payments to the people who take part. This is what those cost in the UK in 2026, with worked examples for the studies we get asked about most. Our prices are published, so you can check them against anyone else's.
What user research costs in 2026
One round of five interviews or tests, recruited, run, analysed and written up: from £5,500.
A bigger round of eight to ten, or two user groups side by side: £8,500 to £11,000.
A discovery or journey study, interviews plus a mapped journey or set of opportunities: from £9,500.
Programmes running over several rounds: from £16,000. Ongoing research on retainer starts at £7,500 a month.
Recruitment only, if you have researchers but not participants: from £1,500 for six people.
Participant payments are inside all of those figures except recruitment only, where they are passed through at cost.
What it costs to recruit and pay participants
Recruitment and participant payments are the parts of a research budget people most often get wrong, so here they are on their own.
| Who | Recruitment | Payment to the participant |
|---|---|---|
| General public | £125 a head with us, plus £750 setup | £40 to £100 a session is normal in the UK |
| Professionals (managers, directors) | £250 a head with us, plus £1,500 setup | £75 an hour (officer) to £200 an hour (director) on our panel |
| Clinicians | Specialist recruitment, £160 to £400 a head across the market | £200 to £350 an hour |
On recruitment-only work we pass participant payments through at cost, plus a 12% handling fee for administering and paying them. So six members of the public for an hour-long session comes to £1,500 for the recruitment and roughly £300 in payments.
Paying less than the going rate is a false saving. You get fewer applicants, more no-shows, and the people who do turn up are the ones who do every study going.
Six worked examples
Each figure comes from our cost calculator, which uses the same pricing as our service pages. Participant payments are included unless the row says otherwise.
| Study | Setup | Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Interviews to understand why customers churn | 5 remote interviews | £5,500 to £6,250 |
| A customer journey study for a new product | 9 discovery interviews and a journey map | £9,500 to £11,000 |
| How people manage money day to day | 8 in-depth interviews | £8,500 to £9,750 |
| Living with a new app over two weeks | Diary study, 10 participants | £8,500 to £9,750 |
| A patient's route through a hospital service | 9 patient interviews, health setting | £11,000 to £12,500 |
| Your team runs it, we find the people | Recruitment only, 6 participants | £1,500 to £1,750, payments at cost |
The upper end of each range allows for what only becomes clear once we see the brief, such as a tight screener or a longer session.
What pushes the price up
1. Who you need. The general public are quick and cheap to find. Clinicians, finance directors, people with a rare condition or people who use assistive technology take longer and cost more, both to recruit and to pay.
2. How many groups. Five people is a fair number for one type of user. Two types, such as patients and the staff who support them, is closer to two studies.
3. In person. £1,400 to £1,800 a day for venue, travel and facilitation, with about three sessions a day.
4. Health and regulated settings. More care with consent, governance and documentation. Our calculator adds 15%.
5. What you get at the end. A findings deck, a journey map, personas built from the evidence, a playback to the board: each takes researcher days. Be clear about what you need before comparing quotes, because it is where they differ most.
Questions buyers ask us
Is it cheaper to do user research in-house? If you already employ a researcher, usually yes, and buying recruitment on its own is the best way to support them. If you don't, one study rarely justifies a hire.
How long does a study take? Two to three weeks from brief to findings for five remote sessions with the general public. Hard-to-reach groups add time, almost all of it recruitment.
Can we use AI personas or synthetic users instead? Not instead. They can help you prepare, but they tell you what a model thinks people say, not what your users do. We wrote about why AI personas can't replace real user research.
How many participants do we need? Usually fewer than people expect, if you test in rounds. See how many participants you actually need.
Price your own study in two minutes
Pick the method, the number of sessions, remote or in person, and whether it is a health setting. The calculator gives the same figure we would quote from, and you don't need to give an email to see it.
We fully recognise the effort your team invested in recruitment, moderation, and analysis, and we genuinely appreciate the quality of the discussions and reporting.
- Usability problems in an insulin device surfaced before manufacturing locked anything in, with human factors evidence supporting the regulatory submission.
- An NHS patient portal team got a prioritised, evidenced list of adoption barriers, and the highest-leverage fix wasn't the one they expected.
- Patient involvement changed a trial's primary endpoint before the protocol was finalised, cited by the ethics committee as a model for evidencing PPIE.
Trusted PPI and PPIE delivery partner to the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Accelerated Surgical Care.
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