Examiner and moderator payments

Rates of payment for individual components vary according to the perceived complexity of the marking.

Travel and subsistence expenses will be paid in accordance with current AQA rates.

Payments to employers for teacher release to enable you to attend the standardisation meeting are made in accordance with the Memorandum of Agreement for the Release of Teachers. If you are not currently employed, you may be eligible to claim an alternative fee for attending the meeting.

The amount you earn depends on the number of exam papers you mark and the complexity of the mark scheme for the paper. AQA pay a fee per script for examining, or per portfolio for moderating, plus a fee for attending the standardisation meeting. We also pay travel expenses for attending the standardisation meeting.

These examples from summer 2007 examiners are a useful guide: the figures are all before tax.

  • An examiner marking electronically for GCSE modern foreign languages received a fee for attending a standardisation meeting and marking questions on their PC. The total was about £1030, and their school received a Teacher Release Voucher towards the cost of cover in school for the meeting day.
  • A GCSE English Literature Tier F examiner received £3.86 per script and had a standard allocation of 400 scripts. Including the fee for attending the standardising meeting the total was about £1650.
  • A GCSE Home Economics: Child Development examiner was allocated 390 scripts, for which the script marking fee was £2.68 per script. Including the fee for attending the standardising meeting, they received about £1176. A Teacher Release Voucher was also provided.
  • An examiner for GCE ICT Unit 2 marked 301 scripts. Including the fee for attending the standardisation meeting (and an additional fee because the meeting was in half-term) they received about £1184.