---
title: "UK Vet Pricing Data Report 2026 | 3,203 Practices Analysed"
url: https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/blog/uk-vet-pricing-data-report-2026
description: "September 2026 UK vet pricing data: trimmed median consultation £59.98, dog spay £360.34, and independents £5 cheaper than corporate chains. Real prices from 3,203 practices."
lang: en
---

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Data & Insights 11 September 2026 11 min read

# UK Vet Pricing Data Report 2026: What 5,883 Practices Reveal About the Cost of Pet Care

By Vet Price Comparison Site Editorial Team · Last reviewed 23 September 2026

Image: UK Vet Pricing Data Report 2026: What 5,883 Practices Reveal About the Cost of Pet Care (https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/assets/uk-vet-pricing-data-DQ-zf0nA.webp)

We track published veterinary pricing across the whole of the UK. Right now that's **5,883 live practices** in 167 counties, sourced from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons' register and enriched with prices published by the practices themselves. **3,203 of those practices** now publish at least one headline price we can verify, up from around 1,600 when we first put this report together in April.

The jump in coverage is worth pausing on. In April we were working with the practices that happened to publish prices, which was a self-selecting group. Now we're close to half the market, which makes these figures much harder to dismiss as unrepresentative. These are the September 2026 numbers.

Last updated: 23 September 2026

All figures below are pulled from our live database. As we add more pricing each week, expect these numbers to shift slightly; the methodology stays the same.

## The headline number: £59.98 for a consultation

Across **2,965 practices** publishing a standard consultation fee, the trimmed median is **£59.98** and the trimmed mean **£59.99**. The spread runs from **£6** at charity-funded clinics to **£400** at specialist and out-of-hours providers.

Compared with our April report (median £59.00, mean £59.93) the national picture has barely moved, despite the sample almost doubling. What that tells us is the April figure wasn't a quirk of a small sample. The number has held up as the data has grown.

## What every routine service costs in 2026

Averages across every practice publishing that specific price. The sample size (n) is shown so you can weigh each figure appropriately.

| Service | UK average | Practices publishing |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Standard consultation | £59.99 | 2,965 |
| Dog booster vaccination | £70.73 | 2,665 |
| Cat booster vaccination | £72.95 | 2,604 |
| Kennel cough vaccination | £63.43 | 1,859 |
| Microchipping | £28.45 | 2,250 |
| Cat castration | £106.76 | 2,783 |
| Cat spay | £150.46 | 2,731 |
| Dog castration | £267.63 | 2,540 |
| Dog spay | £360.34 | 2,482 |

## Dogs vs cats: where the money goes

Consultations and boosters cost about the same whichever animal you bring in. Cat boosters are around £2 more, mainly because feline leukaemia cover often gets bundled in. It's surgery where the real gap opens up:

- **Castration:** dogs average **£267.63** against **£106.76** for cats — two and a half times more.
- **Spaying:** dogs average **£360.34**, cats **£150.46**.

The reasons are surgical. A dog spay takes longer, uses more anaesthetic and more consumables, and is priced by weight band at most practices. A giant-breed spay can run well past £600. Our dog neutering cost guide (https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/blog/dog-neutering-cost-uk-2026) and cat neutering cost guide (https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/blog/cat-neutering-cost-uk-2026) break both down by weight and by region.

## The postcode lottery is real, but smaller than you'd think

Counties with at least 10 priced practices, ranked by average consultation fee. We show the median alongside, because a single referral hospital can drag a county mean upwards.

### Most expensive counties

1. **Northamptonshire** — £69.54 average (£65.00 median, n=34)
2. **Sussex** — £65.77 average (£68.00 median, n=71)
3. **Buckinghamshire** — £65.35 average (£66.50 median, n=24)
4. **London** — £64.86 average (£66.00 median, n=154)
5. **Middlesex** — £64.26 average (£65.00 median, n=47)

### Least expensive counties

1. **Co Antrim** — £38.84 average (£42.00 median, n=13)
2. **Co Down** — £47.17 average (£45.00 median, n=11)
3. **Aberdeenshire** — £51.16 average (£57.50 median, n=28)
4. **Cumbria** — £53.19 average (£55.44 median, n=18)
5. **Lincolnshire** — £53.19 average (£53.75 median, n=52)

The gap between the cheapest and dearest county is **£30.70**. A consultation in Northamptonshire costs, on average, about 79% more than one in Co Antrim. Northern Ireland and northern England are consistently the best-value parts of the UK; the outer commuter belt around London is consistently the dearest.

April's most expensive counties (Cumbria at £106, Bedfordshire at £97) have both dropped out. Those numbers came from two or three referral hospitals in a thin sample. With more than double the data now, the county picture is much steadier, though it's still worth treating any single-county figure with fewer than 10 practices behind it with caution.

You can see the full ranking for every county on our county pricing map (https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/county-pricing).

## Ownership matters more than geography

We couldn't write this section in April. We now classify every practice as either corporate-owned or independent, using footer disclosures, Companies House registrations and group brand mapping.

- **Corporate-owned practices (2,949):** median consultation **£61.00**
- **Independent practices (2,849):** median consultation **£56.00**

That's a **£5 gap on a single consultation**, or around 9%. If you've got two pets needing annual check-ups and boosters, it adds up over a year. What's striking is that this gap is wider than the difference between most neighbouring counties. Who owns your vet tells you more about your bill than where you live.

### How the big groups compare

| Group | Practices | Median consultation | Median dog castration |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| IVC Evidensia | 978 | £66.00 | £352.00 |
| CVS | 493 | £65.00 | £243.00 |
| Pets at Home (Vets4Pets) | 451 | £56.00 | £250.00 |
| VetPartners | 433 | £59.89 | £285.00 |
| Medivet | 354 | £60.00 | £233.00 |
| Linnaeus | 213 | £58.00 | £239.00 |

IVC Evidensia is both the largest group and the most expensive on both measures. Its median dog castration is **£119 more** than Medivet's. Our corporate pricing league table (https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/guides/corporate-pricing-league-table) ranks every group across all nine services, and the corporate ownership guide (https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/guides/corporate-ownership) lets you type in your practice name to see who actually owns it.

## Microchipping: what should you pay?

Microchipping has been compulsory for dogs in England since 2016 and for cats since June 2024. Across **2,250 practices** the trimmed average is **£28.45** and the median **£27.00**. Anything above £35 as a standalone procedure is worth querying. Plenty of practices throw in the chip free with a first vaccination course, and council or charity chipping events usually charge £10–£15.

## Have prices actually risen this year?

We now hold a price history for practices we have re-scraped more than once. Among the **1,500 practices** with two or more consultation-fee snapshots between April and September 2026:

- **317 increased** their consultation fee
- **28 reduced** it
- **1,155 left it unchanged**
- The median change was **£0.00**

Most prices did not move in this window, although increases substantially outnumbered reductions. Most practices review consultation fees once a year, usually in the spring, so the real comparison will come in April 2027. The point of publishing this tracker is that when the next round of increases does land, there's a public record rather than anecdote.

## Transparency is improving quickly

When the CMA reported in March 2026, it found fewer than 40% of practices published any prices online. Our own data tells the same story from the other side. We could verify a price for around 1,600 practices in April. That's now **3,203**, or about **54% of live UK practices**.

Some of that is our own crawling improving, but a clear share is practices publishing price lists ahead of the CMA deadline. Corporate groups must publish standardised lists **before Christmas 2026**; smaller independents follow a few months later. Read the detail in our guide to the CMA reforms (https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/blog/cma-vet-sector-reforms-2026).

## Beyond price: what else the data shows

- **2,427 practices (41%)** offer weekend appointments, something that matters to most owners but rarely shows up in price comparisons.
- **2,148 practices** publish a monthly health plan. These can save money on routine care, but the CMA specifically criticised plans whose advertised savings weren't broken down. Ask for the component prices before signing up.
- **1,001 practices** hold RCVS Practice Standards Scheme accreditation, a voluntary, inspected quality mark that isn't tied to price.

## What this means for you

- **Check at least three practices.** Within 10 miles of most UK postcodes you will find 30–50% variation on identical services.
- **Check ownership, not just price.** Independents are £5 cheaper on a typical consultation, and the surgical gaps are far larger.
- **Ask for the all-in cost.** A cheap consultation can sit alongside an expensive booster or a £35 prescription fee. Compare the basket, not the headline.
- **Ask for a written prescription** for long-term medication — the CMA caps the fee at £21 from March 2027, and online dispensing often saves £200 a year.
- **Use the reforms.** By the end of 2026 every corporate practice must publish a standardised list, making comparison far easier.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the average cost of a vet visit in the UK in 2026?

£59.99 for a standard consultation, based on published prices at 2,965 UK practices after trimming the highest and lowest values. The median, which is the middle figure and a better guide to what you'll actually pay, is £59.98.

### Are independent vets cheaper than corporate chains?

On average, yes. The median independent consultation is £56.00 against £61.00 at corporate-owned practices. The gap widens on surgery, where IVC Evidensia's median dog castration is £352 against a £267.63 national average.

### Why do vet prices vary so much between counties?

Three factors: the mix of corporate versus independent practices, local property and staffing costs, and the presence of referral or out-of-hours providers that charge specialist rates. Once medians are used instead of averages, most counties sit within £10 of each other.

### Will vet prices come down because of the CMA reforms?

The CMA imposed transparency duties, not price caps. The only fee that's actually capped is prescription writing. The idea is that informed owners will shop around, but that only works if people actually compare. That's what this data is for.

## Methodology and about the data

All figures are drawn from our live database of **5,883 live UK veterinary practices** across 167 counties, sourced from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons' register and enriched with publicly available pricing taken directly from each practice's own website.

- **Sample sizes vary by service** because not every practice publishes every price. Averages are only calculated where we hold a verified published figure, and n is shown alongside each statistic.
- **County rankings** only include counties with 10 or more priced practices, to avoid small-sample noise. Both mean and median are published.
- **Ownership classification** uses website footer disclosures, Companies House registrations and group brand mapping; practices we cannot classify with confidence are excluded from the corporate-versus-independent comparison (85 practices).
- **Charity-funded clinics** (PDSA, RSPCA, Blue Cross and similar) carry a Charity badge on their listings. Their means-tested pricing pulls county minimums down and explains the £6 floor.
- **Price history** is captured each time we re-scrape a practice, so the change tracker covers only practices scraped at least twice since April 2026.
- **Refresh cadence:** practices are re-scraped on a rolling basis and coverage grows week on week. This report is refreshed periodically; check the "last updated" date above.
- We do not accept payment from practices for placement, ranking or inclusion.

Explore the data yourself by searching your postcode (https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/), browsing vets by county (https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/vets), or opening the county pricing map (https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/county-pricing).

Browse all articles: https://vetpricecomparisonsite.co.uk/blog

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