What Does a Corporate Away Day Cost in the UK in 2026?
By Ian Ledger (Owner & Managing Partner, Fair Oak Farm)
Corporate away day cost in the UK ranges from a few hundred pounds per person for a residential stay to well over a thousand, and the single biggest factor is whether anyone is staying the night. This article explains what drives the number and what you should expect to pay.
There’s a moment on most corporate stays here that I’ve come to look out for. It’s usually somewhere around nine-thirty or ten o’clock on the first evening, when the work has finished and nobody has gone to bed. The fire pit is going, someone has found the table tennis, and the conversation has moved on to whatever people actually wanted to say to each other. You cannot buy that moment, but you can absolutely stop it happening by booking the wrong place.
So the budget question matters more than it looks. Get the number right and you get that evening. Get it wrong and everyone retreats to their own hotel room straight after dinner.
Twenty years have gone by since we took this place on, which still surprises us when we say it out loud. Our children were babies then and they’re adults now, and the farm means exactly what it always did to us. We’ve picked up some lovely recognition along the way, and National Geographic naming us as one of their most unique stays in the world was a good day.
We host around one hundred retreats and corporate stays a year, and a good number of the people who book and stay have become friends. They’ve shaped this farm as much as we have. What we’ve tried to build, and will continue to build, is somewhere welcoming and flexible enough to hold whatever a group needs it to.
All of which is a long way of saying I’ve had this conversation about money a great many times. Almost every first enquiry circles it without quite asking. I’d rather just answer it.
What Does a Corporate Away Day Cost Per Person in the UK?
Nobody publishes reliable benchmark data for this, which is partly why the question is so hard to answer. What’s online is mostly venue marketing with figures nobody can source.
So here’s a comparison you can check yourself in about a minute. Look up a single room at a reasonable London hotel on a Tuesday in October. You’ll be somewhere north of £200 before anyone has eaten anything, had anywhere to meet, or seen a colleague outside the lobby.
Add dinner, breakfast, a room to work in and somewhere to sit in the evening, and you’re well past £400 a head per night in most of the South East. That’s the number worth holding on to, because it’s what everything below is measured against.
I’d add what I hear on the phone, which is worth more than any published figure. Most people who ring me have already been quoted roughly double our rate by a hotel. At the top end of the market, a country house hotel taken over for three days can be three times what we charge, and for a lot of firms that was never realistic. We’re not that, and I wouldn’t pretend otherwise. There’s no room service - or any service staff you don't need to pay for. What we have is twelve acres, a Grade II listed farmhouse and range of buildings, an excellent chef; all of which is yours and nobody else's. Complete privacy in a private, peaceful setting. If a team wants yoga in the barn, wine tasting, cooking classes, a mindfulness session, a guided walk or treatments in the studio, we can book it in with trusted suppliers we’ve worked with for years. For most groups, the exclusivity and privacy matters, and corporate groups often tell me their team felt able to relax, say what they needed to and bond in a way that hasn't been achievable before.
There’s a shift worth knowing about too. Venuescanner, a UK venue booking platform, reports from its own enquiry data that team away day guest numbers fell 37% in the first half of 2026 while spend per person rose 55%. Companies are taking fewer people and spending more on each of them. That matches what I see in the diary. The groups arriving here are smaller and more senior than they were five years ago. They travel from all over the world and stay for longer - and often for less the same budget they had for previous get-togethers.
Why Do the Quotes Vary So Wildly?
Because people use one phrase for two completely different purchases.
An away day with no overnight is a room, some coffee and a buffet lunch. If that’s genuinely all you need, book it and spend the difference on something else.
A residential offsite is a different animal. You’re now buying bedrooms, dinner, breakfast, somewhere to sit in the evening, and usually single occupancy because nobody wants to share with a colleague they’ve only met on screen for two years. Those are five separate purchases, and at a hotel they arrive as five separate lines, several of which only appear once you’ve mentally committed.
The line that catches most people out is the evening. It’s the part of an offsite that does the real work, and it’s the part a hotel can least give you.
What Does Exclusive Use Actually Change?
Most hotels cannot sell you the building. They’ll sell you bedrooms and a meeting room, and you share the bar, the restaurant and the lobby with whoever else happens to be staying.
Here, once you enter, up the private gravel driveway, the five-bar electric gate shuts behind you and the place is all yours. All twelve acres, every building, the lot. No other guests, no shared breakfast room, nobody from another company at the next table while your leadership team works through something difficult.
What that buys you is harder to put on an invoice than a bedroom is. It’s the group spilling out of the Oak Barn after dinner because there’s nowhere they need to move on to. It’s somebody taking a phone call on a bench in the orchard rather than in a corridor. It's having your own lodge or suite, not just a room. It's the alpacas and cuddly rare-breed sheep, honestly, which have defused more awkward first mornings than I can count.
It also removes a surprising amount of admin. Nobody is working out whether the breakout room is free or which pub to decamp to. You arrive, and for the length of your stay the logistics simply stop being your problem. The space just works. For you and your tribe alone.
Who Actually Books a Place Like Fair Oak Farm?
Three groups, mostly, and they want quite different things from the same few days.
Smaller businesses bringing the whole company together. For an SME of ten, fifteen or twenty people, this is often the one time in the year everybody is in the same place together without distractions. The agenda is usually half strategy and half simply being in a room together, and the budget has to justify itself to someone who feels every pound of it.
Remote-only teams meeting up a few times a year. These have become a bigger part of what we do, and they’re some of the most interesting stays to host. People who have worked together daily for two years, buy perhaps never shared a meal. There’s a particular quality to the first evening of those, and it’s the reason I’d argue hard against anyone trying to do it as a day trip.
Leadership teams and boards from inside larger organisations. Not the whole company, just the ten, fifteen or twenty leaders who need to make decisions with their counter-parts. A strategy day, workshop, or offsite before a reorganisation or a management board that needs to talk properly without anyone walking past. These groups often travel into London from around the world and tend to want fewer activities and more quiet, and they value the gate shutting behind them more than anyone.
A national charity’s leadership team has been coming here for seventeen years. They book next year’s dates on the last day of this year’s stay, before they’ve even left. I’d like to claim that’s clever retention on our part, but I think it’s simpler than that. They’ve found something that works and they don’t want to risk the dates going.
What Does a Corporate Stay Cost at Fair Oak Farm?
Our rates are published, offering you some guidance ahead of a bespoke proposal. In 2027 we expect to have capacity for up to 19 delegates, each with single occupancy to their own private lodge, cottage or room, or up to 17 if it essential everyone has their own private en-suite. Overnight accommodation is flexible so numbers can increase to 22 delegates with everyone in their own space and more sharing of bathrooms, or up to 26 guests with some sharing rooms/lodges. Rates below are for group wanting single occupancy and exclusive use of the whole estate, inclusive of a private chef cooking all meals.
One day with two nights, Monday to Friday
From £7,750 + VAT. That’s about £456 per person, or around £228 per person per night.
Three days with three nights
From £10,500 + VAT. About £618 per person, or around £206 per person per night.
Weekend, up to three nights
From £12,500 + VAT. About £735 per person, or around £245 per person per night.
The per-night figure is the one I’d compare. Around £206 a night buys a delegate their own lodge or room, breakfast, lunch, dinner cooked by our chef, and a share of twelve acres with nobody else on them. Set that against the bare London room rate above and the mathmatics does its own work.
Some of that is simply where we are. Some of it is that we organise and invoice the whole thing ourselves, so there’s no margin riding on top, and you deal with us directly rather than a booking platform.
If the daytime is all you need, our day hire option covers the estate and facilities without the overnight.
What Do the Packages Actually Include?
Every stay provides exclusive use of the whole property: all overnight accommodation, communal spaces, facilities and private parking, set in a protected national landscape one hour from central London.
As a minimum, our corporate packages include a private chef providing full-board meals from menus we agree with you beforehand. Standard packages give up to 19 delegates single occupancy of their own lodge or room, with options to sleep more.
From there you choose. Daytime hosting, concierge and additional staffing. Extra catering, down to marshmallows round the fire pit. Pre-booked drinks deliveries. Transport from the station or the airport. Guided walks, wine tasting, yoga or Pilates in the studio, and massages, facials or treatments with local, trusted suppliers we’ve worked with for years.
The part that matters more than people expect is the invoicing. Everything comes from us, as one supplier, on one invoice. If you work somewhere that requires approved supplier applications before a booking can be confirmed, you’re doing that once rather than five times, and that alone has saved several of our clients a month of internal process.
How Should You Work Out Your Budget?
Start from what the time together has to achieve, then price that.
Count the nights, not the days. If the point is for people to talk properly, you need at least one night. Even a single overnight changes the shape of the day entirely. Build the budget around that from the beginning rather than bolting accommodation on at the end. A group that arrives in the afternoon and eats together starts the next morning already warmed up.
Price the evening before you compare anything. Add dinner, drinks and a private space to each hotel’s day rate. That total is your real comparison figure, and it’s usually a long way from the room rate on the website.
Check the single occupancy position. Many senior teams expect their own room. At most hotels that’s a supplement per person per night, and it’s the line that quietly breaks budgets.
Ask what falls outside the quote. Room hire after 5pm, AV beyond a projector, service charges, a lack of certainty for meal costs which almost always comes with forgotton extras. Better to know up front your total cost without surporises further down the line, during your stay.
Seventeen people, three nights, every meal cooked, the whole place to yourselves, from around £206 plus VAT per person per night. That’s a number you can take to a Finance Director, an MD or a founder and defend on the spot.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a company offsite cost per person in the UK?
There’s no reliable published benchmark, but a useful floor is the cost of a single hotel room plus meals, which in the South East runs past £400 per person per night before you’ve hired anywhere to meet. Our exclusive use rates work out between roughly £200 and £250 per person per night, with accommodation, all meals and the whole estate included. Most people who contact us have been quoted around double that by a hotel, and considerably more at the luxury end.
Is exclusive use venue hire more expensive than booking a hotel?
The headline figure looks bigger because it’s one number covering everything rather than a room rate with the rest added later. Build a hotel booking up to the same inclusions, with single occupancy, breakfast, lunch, dinner and private space in the evening, and the gap usually closes or goes the other way.
What’s actually included in the price?
Exclusive use of the estate, all accommodation, every communal space and facility, private parking for up to 20 cars, and a private chef with service staff cooking full board from menus we agree with you beforehand. Treatments, guided walks, yoga, wine tasting and station pick-ups are available on top, all booked and invoiced by us or directly if you prefer.
How far ahead should we book?
Spring and Autumn dates tend to get booked up to six to nine months ahead. If your dates are fixed by a board calendar, come to us early. We can discuss what’s currently available on our booking calendar, and we can sometimes work with shorter notice, so it’s always worth an email.
What options are available if we want addiotnal day visitors?
Provided we know at thetime of booking, we can sometimes accommodate addiotnal day visotrs and even provide their meals withi the package cost. The Middle House in Mayfield village High Street (3 miles) can offer a room only option and this article recommends a few lodges in our valley - ideal for corporate retreats wanting additional accommodation.
When is Fair Oak Farm the wrong choice for a corporate group?
This is a rural farm in a protected natonal landscape with rare breed sheep in the field and the odd passing tractor. So, if you want a city on the doorstep, or you’re running a conference for a hundred delegates, your team may genuinely prefer to pay two or three times the amount for lless time, but with the anonymity of a hotel chain and clicky-finger service on tap.
Bringing It Together
The cost of an away day comes down almost entirely to whether people are staying the night. Day rates tell you very little. Residential offsites run into the hundreds per person per night once you count everything, and that total is usually higher than people expect before they start pricing it up.
Work out what you need the time to do. Price the evening honestly. Compare like with like. Do that and the budget conversation gets a great deal easier, and you’ll get your evening round the fire pit.
If you’d like to see whether the numbers work for your team, the full rates and inclusions are on our corporate retreat venue page. Or email us at info@fairoakfarm.co.uk and I’d love to talk you through your options.
