To price a catering job per head in the UK, divide your total costs (food, labour, overheads) by the number of guests, then add your profit margin. As a working benchmark, food cost should sit at 25–35% of your per-head price. So if your food costs £8 per person, you'd typically charge between £23 and £32 per head to cover labour, overheads and profit.
That's the short answer. Below is the full method, with realistic UK numbers, so you can quote confidently and stop guessing.
Your per-head price is built from four layers:
Per-head price = Food cost + Labour + Overheads + Profit
The cleanest way to work this out is to start with your true food cost per head, then use a multiplier to cover everything else. Most UK caterers work to a food cost percentage of 27–33%, which means a multiplier of roughly 3x to 3.7x on raw food cost.
Quick example for a 50-guest buffet:
The multiplier method is fast, but it hides whether your labour and overheads are actually covered. For larger or more complex jobs, build the price up properly.
This is where most caterers undercharge. Don't estimate — cost the actual recipe.
1. List every ingredient in each dish.
2. Use your purchase price (what you pay your supplier, including waste).
3. Add 10–15% for trim, spoilage and over-portioning.
4. Divide by the number of portions.
A realistic UK example for a hot fork buffet:
| Cost element | Per head |
|---|---|
| Protein (chicken/beef) | £3.20 |
| Sides, veg, carbs | £2.10 |
| Sauces, garnish, seasoning | £0.70 |
| Bread/rolls | £0.40 |
| Wastage allowance (12%) | £0.77 |
| Total food cost | £7.17 |
Round up to £7.20. Never round food costs down — ingredient prices in the UK have been volatile, and you want headroom.
Labour is the line caterers most often forget to charge for properly. Include:
For a 50-guest event:
Make sure you're paying at least the UK National Minimum/Living Wage and factoring it into your numbers — undervaluing your own time is the fastest route to a job that "made money" but left you exhausted and broke.
These are the costs that exist whether or not you cater this particular job, spread across your work:
A simple approach: total your monthly overheads, estimate how many events you do per month, and allocate a share. Many small caterers add £2–£4 per head to cover this, or roughly 10–15% of the price.
For our example, say £2.50 per head.
Profit is not what's left over by accident — it's a deliberate line. Aim for a net profit of 10–20% after everything else is paid.
Let's total our example:
| Element | Per head |
|---|---|
| Food | £7.20 |
| Labour | £6.20 |
| Overheads | £2.50 |
| Subtotal (cost) | £15.90 |
| Profit (20%) | £3.18 |
| Price per head (ex VAT) | £19.08 |
Round to £19.50 or £20 per head.
Use these as sanity checks, not gospel — your region, ingredients and service level move them:
If your calculated price lands far below these ranges, you've likely missed a cost. Far above, and you may be over-portioning or under-buying.
If your turnover is over the UK VAT threshold (£90,000 as of the 2024/25 threshold), you must register and charge 20% VAT on most catering. Hot food and catering services are standard-rated. Quote clearly as either "ex VAT" or "inc VAT" — confusion here causes disputes and eats your margin.
Per-head pricing is a starting point. Layer on:
Pricing a catering job properly means costing recipes, scaling them to guest numbers, applying margins and producing a clean quote — every single time, for every job. Doing that by hand is slow and easy to get wrong.
If you'd like an easier way to cost recipes, set your margins and produce per-head catering quotes, PrepSheet is building free food-cost and recipe-costing tools — plus ready-made Excel templates including a catering quote template — for chefs and food businesses. You can try the free tools at getprepsheet.com, and if you'd like early access to new features, you're welcome to join the waitlist.