How to Become an Escort in the UK

This gets searched several hundred times a month in the UK and answered badly almost every time, usually by someone selling a course. Here is the version without the sales pitch.

The legal position

Selling sex is legal in the UK. That is the starting point and it surprises people.

What is illegal sits around it: soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, running a brothel, and controlling another person for gain. The brothel definition is the one that catches people out, because in law it means more than one person selling sex from the same premises. Two escorts sharing a flat for safety are technically running a brothel, which is a genuinely bad piece of law and one worth knowing about before you arrange your working life around it.

The longer explanation of UK law covers the client side of the same question.

What it pays

London hourly rates run from roughly £200 to £600, and the honest bit is that where you work sets that number far more than anything about you. Central rates carry central rents.

Against that, count the costs nobody mentions: incall rent or hotel rooms, photography that needs redoing a few times a year, advertising on the directories that actually get traffic, travel, and tax. It is self employment, so the tax is yours to handle, and HMRC does not care what the trade is.

Nobody works a full week of booked hours. Anyone quoting you an annual figure based on a full diary is selling something.

Agency or independent

The real decision, and there is no universally right answer.

• Independent. You keep everything and control everything. You also do your own screening, advertising, photography, diary and admin, and you absorb every quiet week alone.
• Agency. A cut of each booking, typically around thirty per cent, in exchange for the phone being answered, clients being screened, and a diary that fills without you marketing yourself.

Most people who last do one, then the other. We cover how the three models actually differ from the client side, which is a useful read in reverse.

What a good agency does

Worth knowing so you can tell the difference, because the gap between a good one and a bad one is enormous.

A good one screens clients before they reach you and tells you who you are meeting. It takes the money side out of the room. It never sends you somewhere you have said no to, and never rings you about a booking you already declined. It is straight about what it takes and when it pays.

Warning signs, in plain terms: anyone charging a joining fee, anyone holding your identity documents, anyone vague about their cut, anyone who talks about what you owe them, and anyone applying pressure about a booking after you have said no. Those are not tough negotiators. Walk.

The questions worth asking

• What is your commission, and when am I paid?
• What do you tell a client about me before a booking?
• What do you check about a client before you pass him on?
• What happens if I turn a booking down, or cancel one?
• Am I under any contract, and can I leave whenever I want?

Any agency worth joining answers all five without hesitating. Hesitation is the answer.

If you are considering it here

We take on a small number of new companions and the process is a conversation rather than a form. What we provide, what we take, and what you keep control of are all set out on the casting page.

Read it before you contact anyone, including us. Knowing what a reasonable offer looks like is most of the protection you need.