Father Christmas pay rates have remained unchanged since last year, with incumbents once again standing to earn £15.00 an hour at the median according to our monitoring of the job market for festive roles. In practice, hourly rates for these positions, which are found in a variety of settings including garden centres and other retail outlets, tourist attractions, leisure venues, hotels and holiday parks, range widely, from £12.21 (equivalent to the National Living Wage/NLW) at three employers to £27.59 at a farm park. Upper-quartile rates (of £20.00 and above) are typically found at tourist attractions, leisure venues and a handful of garden centres. Some organisations operate pay ranges for their Santas – for example, the garden centre operator Dobbies offers £17.00 to candidates for whom it is the ‘first time leaving the North Pole’ and £20.00 for those with prior experience.
Elves fare slightly better this year: while their median pay rate is 17% lower than that for Santas, at £12.48 an hour, this represents a 7.6% increase on the median rate of £11.60 recorded in 2024. (For comparison, the NLW rose by 6.7% this year.) The median rate’s lead over the NLW has increased further this year, from 1.4% in 2024 to 2.2% in the latest research. However, a higher proportion of organisations this time (just under a third, compared with 26% of last year’s sample) set their elf pay rates at the level of the statutory minimum. In addition to basic pay, these roles often attract perks that are specific to the employer, such as free or subsidised meals or entry tickets.
Just under a fifth (17%) of the sample operate youth rates for elves, with under-21s on pay rates that are typically aligned to the relevant minimum wage age rate (currently £10 for workers aged 18-20 and £7.55 for 16- and 17-year-olds).
We also collected pay data for head elves at five organisations, with this showing a median rate of £12.80 – equivalent to a 2.8% premium for taking on the associated additional responsibilities. However, one garden centre pays the statutory minimum of £12.21 to regular and head elves alike.
Requirements for the role
The majority of vacancies we have analysed are traditional grotto-based roles, with elves greeting children, keeping the areas clean and tidy, checking that Father Christmas has enough presents and ensuring that he keeps to time. Many of the skills and attributes employers are looking for are common to both Santas and elves, and often include customer-facing experience, time management and improvisation skills. It goes without saying that candidates should work well with children, with some adverts mentioning that experience of working with children with special needs would be a bonus. For roles that involve a scripted show, public speaking skills or formal acting experience are often valued. Meanwhile more than one advertiser mentions that (for Father Christmas) a natural beard would be an asset and for a pub in the sample, Santa would ideally be ‘of a larger build’.
Several advertisements highlight the need for candidates to have a love of Christmas. And the Head Elf at Santa’s Secret Forest in Liverpool is expected to have ‘knowledge of Christmas lore (North Pole geography, elf hierarchy and reindeer etiquette)’. On perhaps a more practical note, some employers emphasise that successful applicants need to be comfortable working outdoors and/or staying in costume for their whole shift.
Certain sectors, such as retail and hospitality, see an increase in temporary vacancies over the Christmas period and this can often lead to permanent or longer-term employment. Festive roles are no exception: the sample includes two employers (an outlet centre and a farm for visitors with special needs) where elf activities are undertaken by guest services or events assistants, offering the scope for further (sometimes seasonal) employment at other times of the year.
