What does it cost to hire a lettings administrator in the UK?

A full-time lettings administrator costs an agency around £32,876 a year on the median pay of the ONS group that holds the job, once about £3,548 in employer National Insurance and £672 in minimum pension contributions are added, and about £34,876 in the first year with recruitment. The ONS has no pay line for lettings administrators alone and counts them among records clerks and assistants, a group whose full-time median was £28,656 in 2025, with the middle half between £25,500 and £33,159. Equipment, training and cover come on top.

How much is a lettings administrator paid?

The ONS coding index for the Standard Occupational Classification puts the title, with lettings assistant and property assistant, in the group "Records clerks and assistants" (SOC 2020 code 4131). Table 14.7a of ASHE 2025, the provisional edition published on 23 October 2025, gives that group's gross annual pay for full-time jobs: a median of £28,656, a 25th percentile of £25,500 and a 75th percentile of £33,159. The group is wide and most of the people in it do not work in lettings, so treat the figure as a guide and check it against two or three local adverts. The figures are UK-wide and pay varies by region. A lettings negotiator paid partly on commission is a different job and sits in a different ONS group, with the estate agents.

What does an agency pay on top of the salary?

• Employer National Insurance. An agency pays 15% on what the administrator earns above £5,000 a year in the 2026 to 2027 tax year, which on the median is £3,548. The Employment Allowance takes up to £10,500 off an eligible employer's NI bill for the year, so an eligible agency with a small payroll may pay little or none of this.

• Pension. The automatic enrolment minimum for the employer is 3% of qualifying earnings, which are the earnings between £6,240 and £50,270 a year: £672 on the median.

• Holiday. The statutory minimum for a full-time worker is 5.6 weeks, 28 days. The salary buys about 46 working weeks before sickness and training days, and move-ins are booked in the other six too.

• Recruitment. The CIPD's Resourcing and talent planning report 2026 gives a median cost per hire of £2,000 for employees below senior management, counting in-house time, advertising, agency fees, vetting and onboarding. It is a survey median from a small sample, the 223 employers who could estimate it to within a fifth, so take it as a guide. Add it and the first year comes to about £34,876.

None of that counts a manager's time, a desk and a laptop, a seat in Reapit or Alto, or the weeks between a resignation and the next person knowing the portfolio. Those are real, and they vary too much between agencies to put a number on.

What does a lettings administrator do all week?

The title covers the paperwork of a tenancy from application to move-in and on through renewal. A lettings administrator usually:

• starts the referencing application and chases the applicant, the guarantor and the employer until the provider has what it needs;

• in England, collects right to rent documents for a person to check before the tenancy starts;

• drafts the tenancy agreement;

• in England and Wales, registers the deposit and sends the prescribed information inside the 30-day limit;

• books the inventory and the check-in;

• keeps gas, electrical and EPC dates in the diary and chases the landlord and the contractor when one comes round;

• answers the landlord who wants to know where the reference has got to.

Most of it is the same task repeated for every property: open the file, send the request, wait, chase, log the reply, update the record.

Can AI do part of a lettings administrator's job?

In a letting agency an AI worker can take the repeating part of this job by starting and chasing the referencing application, keeping one register of certificate dates and opening each renewal with time in hand, sending the reminders, reading the replies, logging them and keeping the lettings software current. It is scoped to work in the lettings software the agency already runs, and it drafts rather than decides. An estate agency with a lettings side has the same list.

What stays with a person?

The right to rent check itself, where it applies: a person sees the documents or the Home Office result and signs it off. The decision to let. Every phone call, to an employer, a landlord or a tenant. Anything a tenant or a landlord disputes. The move-in file is approved by a person before keys are released, and a deposit dispute is a person's job from start to finish. An agency that hands the chasing to an AI worker still needs someone who knows lettings. It may not need the second one that growth was about to force.

How to tell how big the hire needs to be

Write down the lettings administrator's week and sort it into two columns: what is the same for every property, and what needs a conversation or a judgement. The first column is the case for an AI worker, the second is the case for the person, and if the first is most of the week, the job you are about to advertise may be a smaller one than you thought. Our starting price is on the homepage. AI staff compared with hiring an administrator sets the two side by side, the general version of this sum is in what it costs to hire an administrator, and what it costs to employ someone in the UK covers any hire.

For a letting agency the referencing chasing, the renewals and the reminders would be scoped as a role of its own for an AI worker, with a person approving what goes out and making the decision to let. When the next hire would spend most of the week on references and certificate dates, those are the part of the job to talk to our agent about.