Trade rates experience
Discussion
I’ve had this all my working life , your ripping me off - charging to much .
I got sick in the end and gave up , I started telling people if it’s that easy do it yourself , surprisingly most are scared of heights and have no idea how to fix a roof , plaster a wall , tile a floor or carry out any other building related work to a standard I can .
A lot of college educated boys look down their noses at trades and seem to dismiss us as stupid and should be paid a pittance for the pleasure of working on their property, we all had an education , some were taught in a classroom and some were taught on a site , it’s the same and just because your parents paid for an education and told you lies about being superior to a humble workman your not .
Everyone is equal in my eyes .
I never had a problem paying an accountant for shuffling papers around and mixing a few figures up .
I got sick in the end and gave up , I started telling people if it’s that easy do it yourself , surprisingly most are scared of heights and have no idea how to fix a roof , plaster a wall , tile a floor or carry out any other building related work to a standard I can .
A lot of college educated boys look down their noses at trades and seem to dismiss us as stupid and should be paid a pittance for the pleasure of working on their property, we all had an education , some were taught in a classroom and some were taught on a site , it’s the same and just because your parents paid for an education and told you lies about being superior to a humble workman your not .
Everyone is equal in my eyes .
I never had a problem paying an accountant for shuffling papers around and mixing a few figures up .
mikebradford said:
This is developer rates bringing trades in.
As such ringing round for best rates and reusing trades that have turned up and done a decent job in the past.
The decorator is an anomaly, does a great job at a cheap rate.
He is english late to middle age.
Good stuff. Get the most out of him before he wakes up As such ringing round for best rates and reusing trades that have turned up and done a decent job in the past.
The decorator is an anomaly, does a great job at a cheap rate.
He is english late to middle age.
PhilboSE said:
I have an issue with the plumber saying, on bidding for the work, verbatim: "it looks like 5 days work and my mate and I need £400 a day out of it". I thought that was fair, for a day rate. The job actually took them 2.5 days. Now, I know some people will say "but they overestimate on some jobs and underestimate on others and it all comes out in the wash". In my case the job couldn't have been more transparent - floors were up, ceilings were down, pipe runs were easy. So him being 100% inaccurate in his estimation cost me £2000 on his quoted rates.
You said in the OP that you got 5 quotes & went with the lowest at £5,750 with others being mostly £6K+.Excluding the £10K guy who obviously didn't want it, 4nr quotes in the £6K region indicates that they all thought the job would take a similar amount of time for whatever reason.
LooneyTunes said:
nuyorican said:
£110 a day for a decorator? No chance. Unless they're retired and topping up, or Romanian... Even a kid straight out of college would be asking £150 sub-contracting. Self-employed - £200-£360.
£200-360/day for a decorator? Maybe in London/SE but they’re nowhere near that where I am. nuyorican said:
Sheffield
You must be having a laugh.£200/day in some cases perhaps, but a self-employed decorator quoting £360/day labour isn't winning work anytime soon.
£360/day x 5 days is £1,800/week!
40 hour week = £45/hr - for a decorator? - absolute nonsense.
£45ph
Yes, that sounds about right.
Now start deducting business operating costs from that figure. Downtime/illness/holiday pay. Insurance, accounting fees. Tools, insurance, van finance, van repairs and associated costs. Maintenance of and replacement of lost and stolen tools. Advertising/online presence. PPE/workwear/Laundry…
Pretty soon you’re getting down to a normal ish figure that the tradesman gets to keep.
You can always find someone cheaper. Not everyone wants to get involved in some race to the bottom price war working for landlords and property developers. There are plenty of clients in the domestic and even commercial sectors that appreciate the cost of living and the cost of running a business who want someone presentable and trustworthy in their homes and business premises.
Sure. Put up a post on Facebook asking for quotes to paint your bathroom, and you’ll probably get it done for £50. They might even do a decent job of it. But it doesn’t mean that’s the going rate.
Yes, that sounds about right.
Now start deducting business operating costs from that figure. Downtime/illness/holiday pay. Insurance, accounting fees. Tools, insurance, van finance, van repairs and associated costs. Maintenance of and replacement of lost and stolen tools. Advertising/online presence. PPE/workwear/Laundry…
Pretty soon you’re getting down to a normal ish figure that the tradesman gets to keep.
You can always find someone cheaper. Not everyone wants to get involved in some race to the bottom price war working for landlords and property developers. There are plenty of clients in the domestic and even commercial sectors that appreciate the cost of living and the cost of running a business who want someone presentable and trustworthy in their homes and business premises.
Sure. Put up a post on Facebook asking for quotes to paint your bathroom, and you’ll probably get it done for £50. They might even do a decent job of it. But it doesn’t mean that’s the going rate.
Edited by nuyorican on Sunday 28th April 22:39
nuyorican said:
£45ph
Yes, that sounds about right.
Now start deducting business operating costs from that figure. Downtime/illness/holiday pay. Insurance, accounting fees. Tools, insurance, van finance, van repairs and associated costs. Maintenance of and replacement of lost and stolen tools. Advertising/online presence. PPE/workwear/Laundry…
Pretty soon you’re getting down to a normal ish figure that the tradesman gets to keep.
You can always find someone cheaper. Not everyone wants to get involved in some race to the bottom price war working for landlords and property developers. There are plenty of clients in the domestic and even commercial sectors that appreciate the cost of living and the cost of running a business who want someone presentable and trustworthy in their homes and business premises.
Sure. Put up a post on Facebook asking for quotes to paint your bathroom, and you’ll probably get it done for £50. They might even do a decent job of it. But it doesn’t mean that’s the going rate.
What do you do for a living? Yes, that sounds about right.
Now start deducting business operating costs from that figure. Downtime/illness/holiday pay. Insurance, accounting fees. Tools, insurance, van finance, van repairs and associated costs. Maintenance of and replacement of lost and stolen tools. Advertising/online presence. PPE/workwear/Laundry…
Pretty soon you’re getting down to a normal ish figure that the tradesman gets to keep.
You can always find someone cheaper. Not everyone wants to get involved in some race to the bottom price war working for landlords and property developers. There are plenty of clients in the domestic and even commercial sectors that appreciate the cost of living and the cost of running a business who want someone presentable and trustworthy in their homes and business premises.
Sure. Put up a post on Facebook asking for quotes to paint your bathroom, and you’ll probably get it done for £50. They might even do a decent job of it. But it doesn’t mean that’s the going rate.
Edited by nuyorican on Sunday 28th April 22:39
Genuinely curious as you seem to think that £45/hr for a decorator is normal.
£45 x 40hrs = £1,800 per week = approx. £7,500/month
That's 3x the average UK wage FFS - why aren't more people grabbing paintbrushes with that money on offer.
For my part, I've been a QS for the last 25 years; both client & contractor side and send-out / review trade package tenders daily.
The majority of my projects are central London which attracts a premium vs other UK regions, but I can guarantee that neither my current firm or any of our competitors employ sub-contract decorators at a labour rate of £45/hr. Half of that would be top-end.
Edited by OzzyR1 on Monday 29th April 00:17
Edited by OzzyR1 on Monday 29th April 00:17
Well you’ve kind of illustrated my point. You take on sub-contractors. I wouldn’t charge £45 per hour if I didn’t have to worry about anything other than stubbing out the spliff and getting to work on time…
With weighty respect that you work in London, and for your mathematical prowess at multiplying 45 into embigenned number, you’re still failing to understand that businesses have overheads. So I’m guessing you’re an employee?
With weighty respect that you work in London, and for your mathematical prowess at multiplying 45 into embigenned number, you’re still failing to understand that businesses have overheads. So I’m guessing you’re an employee?
Edited by nuyorican on Monday 29th April 00:24
nuyorican said:
Well you’ve kind of illustrated my point. You take on sub-contractors. I wouldn’t charge £45 per hour if I didn’t have to worry about anything other than stubbing out the spliff and getting to work on time…
I retract my posts in that case - thought you were talking about average labour rates for decorating trades rather than individual, bespoke work.Fully understand - I wouldn't employ 95% of the decs on site to work in my own house. They drink Stella for breakfast, speak in grunts, more Stella at lunch then start a fight with either groundworkers or scaffolders who have been doing much the same.
The decorators generally come off worse, groundworks & scaffs are a different animal altogether.
If you can get that rate, fair play to you & hope you do well.
Not the norm for a standard subcontract decorator though.
nuyorican said:
With weighty respect that you work in London, and for your mathematical prowess at multiplying 45 into embigenned number, you’re still failing to understand that businesses have overheads. So I’m guessing you’re an employee?
I do both.Edited by nuyorican on Monday 29th April 00:24
We may have been getting wires crossed, I was disputing that £45/hr was a labour rate for a normal PAYE decorator in a large subcontract firm which is not the case.
If you are a sole trader / small business & good at what you do, then I'd pay a premium for you to work in my own house rather than go for the cheapest quote from a bigger subcontractor who would send whoever was free at the time to do the job.
Edited by OzzyR1 on Monday 29th April 00:58
OzzyR1 said:
Not the norm for a standard subcontract decorator though.
Totally ?? That’s why I brought up the issue about employee/subby/selfemployed on this thread.
I’m not sure it was clear, I can’t remember, whether the OP was a domestic customer or a business looking for subbies/employees.
For the record I don’t charge £45 per hour. I don’t pay rent on a yard or have a top end van to finance. I don’t charge by the hour or day full stop because it encourages clock watching by the customer. I tend to give a price. Tomorrow for example I have a small job of fixing a water stain in a lady’s bathroom. I think I charged £150. It will probably take 2-3 hours. But then before that I’m collecting materials for another job and quoting for another job all free of charge. So I look at it as £150 for the morning. Not an extravagant amount.
Edit; just realised I’ve got nothing booked in for tomorrow afternoon so it’s £150 for the day. Will probably do some accounting in the afternoon or clear out the van. All free of charge of course.
Edited by nuyorican on Monday 29th April 01:16
PhilboSE said:
The plumber who quoted £10k+VAT has seen my main house…obviously misjudged I know how much things cost…
Nice easy payday for all the rest though. Makes me wish I could do all the pipe runs myself and just get someone in to do the boiler install, because that’s a competitive market. Unfortunately I’ve just never had the balls to do my own copper work.
That's exactly what I did. All the pipework and radiators myself and then bought the boiler using the plumbers trade account.Nice easy payday for all the rest though. Makes me wish I could do all the pipe runs myself and just get someone in to do the boiler install, because that’s a competitive market. Unfortunately I’ve just never had the balls to do my own copper work.
He then installed the boiler and commissioned the system and registered it with Baxi for the 10 year warranty for £120.
Other than the 40kw combi being £1050 I didn't keep track of the cost of pipework and rads to get a total end cost.
Gotta hit the sack, but another way of looking at this is when you get your timing belt changed on your car. Do you look on the internet at what a mechanic earns as an employee and then query how long it took them to do it based on that price? No. You pay a bigger price based on the overheads of the overall business right?
nuyorican said:
OzzyR1 said:
Not the norm for a standard subcontract decorator though.
Totally ?? That’s why I brought up the issue about employee/subby/selfemployed on this thread.
I’m not sure it was clear, I can’t remember, whether the OP was a domestic customer or a business looking for subbies/employees.
For the record I don’t charge £45 per hour. I don’t pay rent on a yard or have a top end van to finance. I don’t charge by the hour or day full stop because it encourages clock watching by the customer. I tend to give a price. Tomorrow for example I have a small job of fixing a water stain in a lady’s bathroom. I think I charged £150. It will probably take 2-3 hours. But then before that I’m collecting materials for another job and quoting for another job all free of charge. So I look at it as £150 for the morning. Not an extravagant amount.
Using your example above, £150 sounds more than reasonable.
You might only be in the house for 90mins, but with travel time, buying parts, unloading kit etc it's a minimum of half a day's work. Unless you have something similar scheduled for the afternoon, that's your income done.
Running a business is bl00dy hard work, good luck to you.
nuyorican said:
Gotta hit the sack, but another way of looking at this is when you get your timing belt changed on your car. Do you look on the internet at what a mechanic earns as an employee and then query how long it took them to do it based on that price? No. You pay a bigger price based on the overheads of the overall business right?
Think we're singing from the same hymn sheet now.As posts above, originally thought you were speaking about £/hr costs for PAYE dec trades generally, rather than from a sole-trader POV.
Believe we were both right - I know what the going rate is for various s/c trades employed by big firms in my line of work, and you know what you charge for your own jobs. Both talking about the construction industry but in wholly different spheres.
To respond to your point above, I'd ask how much the timing belt was then tell them to crack on if I thought it OK, or get another quote if not.
Similar if you came to me and quoted a price of £500 to do a job, I'd either say yes, or let me think about it and/or get another price.
Wouldn't think of looking up what the average mechanic earns per hour, any more than I'd look up your average trade rate per hour.
Neither would I estimate how long the job would take; the mechanic or you know better than me - hence why I'm coming to you in the first place!
OzzyR1 said:
The majority of my projects are central London which attracts a premium vs other UK regions, but I can guarantee that neither my current firm or any of our competitors employ sub-contract decorators at a labour rate of £45/hr. Half of that would be top-end.
Agree. Not London, but not middle of nowhere either, and we’ve never paid more than £150/day for a decorator (ex-materials, and good paint is really expensive these days). Usually relatively sizeable jobs oat least a week at a time, often several). Never cash in hand. nuyorican said:
I don’t charge £45 per hour. I don’t pay rent on a yard or have a top end van to finance. I don’t charge by the hour or day full stop because it encourages clock watching by the customer. I tend to give a price. Tomorrow for example I have a small job of fixing a water stain in a lady’s bathroom. I think I charged £150. It will probably take 2-3 hours. But then before that I’m collecting materials for another job and quoting for another job all free of charge. So I look at it as £150 for the morning. Not an extravagant amount.
Edit; just realised I’ve got nothing booked in for tomorrow afternoon so it’s £150 for the day. Will probably do some accounting in the afternoon or clear out the van. All free of charge of course.
Quoting for smaller jobs on the basis of what you think someone will pay is completely different to extrapolating that to a day rate unless you can reliably fill your time. Surely collecting materials, when billing on a job basis, is part of that job, just done on a different day (I.e. not free of charge). Edit; just realised I’ve got nothing booked in for tomorrow afternoon so it’s £150 for the day. Will probably do some accounting in the afternoon or clear out the van. All free of charge of course.
Certainly the trades we use if there was a job that was really a half day, most wouldn’t do it unless they were going to charge enough to make it worthwhile (usually a full day, and either have the rest of the time off, catch up with quotes/admin, or try to slot in another small job).
A good decorator makes a huge difference to a job, but rates seem to get held down by what other trades charge.
OzzyR1 said:
What do you do for a living?
Genuinely curious as you seem to think that £45/hr for a decorator is normal.
£45 x 40hrs = £1,800 per week = approx. £7,500/month
That's 3x the average UK wage FFS - why aren't more people grabbing paintbrushes with that money on offer.
For my part, I've been a QS for the last 25 years; both client & contractor side and send-out / review trade package tenders daily.
The majority of my projects are central London which attracts a premium vs other UK regions, but I can guarantee that neither my current firm or any of our competitors employ sub-contract decorators at a labour rate of £45/hr. Half of that would be top-end.
Absolutely. There’s some ridiculous rates being put up as gospel. By the same token the one off householder prices will be whatever they can get but £120-150 a day is the norm around semi rural here. Genuinely curious as you seem to think that £45/hr for a decorator is normal.
£45 x 40hrs = £1,800 per week = approx. £7,500/month
That's 3x the average UK wage FFS - why aren't more people grabbing paintbrushes with that money on offer.
For my part, I've been a QS for the last 25 years; both client & contractor side and send-out / review trade package tenders daily.
The majority of my projects are central London which attracts a premium vs other UK regions, but I can guarantee that neither my current firm or any of our competitors employ sub-contract decorators at a labour rate of £45/hr. Half of that would be top-end.
Edited by OzzyR1 on Monday 29th April 00:17
Edited by OzzyR1 on Monday 29th April 00:17
Edited by GeneralBanter on Monday 29th April 08:58
I wrote this on another post about 6 weeks ago .
I have been using lots of trades over the past four months for a big job at my house .
Electricians, Plumbers, flooring contractors and plasterers.
I had many quotes from all and finally settled on the four contractors . By judgement and some luck , I would have them all back next time , all were what they said and kept to the quoted price .
What I did see in all the separate quotations I got last Autumn was the variance in price was remarkable
For any of the four jobs the difference was always double if not more . So a £1000 job was also a £2000 job from someone else , regardless of the specific trade . There were some howlers too .
The electrical work was £1200 paid , yet I got a quote of £3400 for the same job.
Plasterers were £1100 to £3800 for the same job .
The most consistent quotes were plumbers
But my best one , kardean flooring across three rooms, levelling floors and screading them all and a smooth coat before fitting .
£5600 to £13,900
I have been using lots of trades over the past four months for a big job at my house .
Electricians, Plumbers, flooring contractors and plasterers.
I had many quotes from all and finally settled on the four contractors . By judgement and some luck , I would have them all back next time , all were what they said and kept to the quoted price .
What I did see in all the separate quotations I got last Autumn was the variance in price was remarkable
For any of the four jobs the difference was always double if not more . So a £1000 job was also a £2000 job from someone else , regardless of the specific trade . There were some howlers too .
The electrical work was £1200 paid , yet I got a quote of £3400 for the same job.
Plasterers were £1100 to £3800 for the same job .
The most consistent quotes were plumbers
But my best one , kardean flooring across three rooms, levelling floors and screading them all and a smooth coat before fitting .
£5600 to £13,900
cliffords said:
I wrote this on another post about 6 weeks ago .
I have been using lots of trades over the past four months for a big job at my house .
Electricians, Plumbers, flooring contractors and plasterers.
I had many quotes from all and finally settled on the four contractors . By judgement and some luck , I would have them all back next time , all were what they said and kept to the quoted price .
What I did see in all the separate quotations I got last Autumn was the variance in price was remarkable
For any of the four jobs the difference was always double if not more . So a £1000 job was also a £2000 job from someone else , regardless of the specific trade . There were some howlers too .
The electrical work was £1200 paid , yet I got a quote of £3400 for the same job.
Plasterers were £1100 to £3800 for the same job .
The most consistent quotes were plumbers
But my best one , kardean flooring across three rooms, levelling floors and screading them all and a smooth coat before fitting .
£5600 to £13,900
Only proves the importance of getting more than one quote, I’m a great believer in tendering I have been using lots of trades over the past four months for a big job at my house .
Electricians, Plumbers, flooring contractors and plasterers.
I had many quotes from all and finally settled on the four contractors . By judgement and some luck , I would have them all back next time , all were what they said and kept to the quoted price .
What I did see in all the separate quotations I got last Autumn was the variance in price was remarkable
For any of the four jobs the difference was always double if not more . So a £1000 job was also a £2000 job from someone else , regardless of the specific trade . There were some howlers too .
The electrical work was £1200 paid , yet I got a quote of £3400 for the same job.
Plasterers were £1100 to £3800 for the same job .
The most consistent quotes were plumbers
But my best one , kardean flooring across three rooms, levelling floors and screading them all and a smooth coat before fitting .
£5600 to £13,900
cliffords said:
I wrote this on another post about 6 weeks ago .
I have been using lots of trades over the past four months for a big job at my house .
Electricians, Plumbers, flooring contractors and plasterers.
I had many quotes from all and finally settled on the four contractors . By judgement and some luck , I would have them all back next time , all were what they said and kept to the quoted price .
What I did see in all the separate quotations I got last Autumn was the variance in price was remarkable
For any of the four jobs the difference was always double if not more . So a £1000 job was also a £2000 job from someone else , regardless of the specific trade . There were some howlers too .
The electrical work was £1200 paid , yet I got a quote of £3400 for the same job.
Plasterers were £1100 to £3800 for the same job .
The most consistent quotes were plumbers
But my best one , kardean flooring across three rooms, levelling floors and screading them all and a smooth coat before fitting .
£5600 to £13,900
Only proves the importance of getting more than one quote, I’m a great believer in tendering I have been using lots of trades over the past four months for a big job at my house .
Electricians, Plumbers, flooring contractors and plasterers.
I had many quotes from all and finally settled on the four contractors . By judgement and some luck , I would have them all back next time , all were what they said and kept to the quoted price .
What I did see in all the separate quotations I got last Autumn was the variance in price was remarkable
For any of the four jobs the difference was always double if not more . So a £1000 job was also a £2000 job from someone else , regardless of the specific trade . There were some howlers too .
The electrical work was £1200 paid , yet I got a quote of £3400 for the same job.
Plasterers were £1100 to £3800 for the same job .
The most consistent quotes were plumbers
But my best one , kardean flooring across three rooms, levelling floors and screading them all and a smooth coat before fitting .
£5600 to £13,900
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