Builders/ joiners, what's the going rate for labour?

Had a guy come round to measure up for my raised deck yesterday, he said he’d drop a quote in sometime during the week but thought I’d ask here what the average labour cost is these days.

He’s told me that the materials will cost in the region of £1100 to £1200 and he will be there for about 4 days doing the job. He has one other lad working with him.

Granted I will get a quote someday soon but wouldnt mind knowing what the average going rate is.

£110-125 a day for a journeyman round these parts (Worcs)

A lad would be a bit less.

I was thinking about £200 a day all in but some say less and others say nearer £300 a day.

I’m just trying to figure out if i have enough in the budget for some outdoor furniture from the Argos laminated book of dreams 😀

if you mean £200 all in being £200 for two guys, a gaffer and a lad, then yes, Id agree. Somewhere between £200 and £225ish.

It’s whatever the rate is, plus, a fried breakfast at about 10 and constant mugs of strong tea throughout the day, unless it’s really hot in which case you will be expected to supply ice cold beer.

a fried breakfast at about 10 and constant mugs of strong tea throughout the day

You have to look after them. I had some roofers putting a new roof on for us and they were probably the best fed in the nation when it came to breakfast baguettes. 🙂

as some one who uses a fair bit of casual labour.. i pay 50 a day in the north west for a days work. i dont stop for lunch or breaks unless we re brought out refreshment in london i ve paid as little as 40 a day.

for a craftsman/ tradesman supplying his own tools i pay 120 a day, for an hourly rate i pay 30 quid for a trade at the time and place of my choosing late or no show never used again..

for a garden labourer doing the work described i’d go 100 for the day and 50 for the lad

You’d be looking at £150 a day minimum for a wood-joining tradesman around these parts*
Raised decking will require a tradesman

*effluent Notts 8)

Our line of work is extensions, loft conversions and refurb work.How can you run a buisness working for £100.00 a day. We charge out at £18.75 an hour per man thats £300.00 for an 8 hour day for 2 men, and were not expensive.

”how can you run a business on 100 a day?..” easily and cheaply the lads who work for me know that they ll be paid cash at the end of each day ( for which i require a receipt)

labour and trades are cheap and plentiful in the northwest, so cheap that one landlord paid me last month to jump on a train to just north of london do 4 gas certificates and let the train take the strain on the way home. i was paid 35ph from train depart home to train arrive home and the train fare was paid. he reckoned he saved over 150.

£250 a day gets me a building ‘crew’ of qualified and time-served chap plus another – and a (no VAT) invoice. Obviously add 20% if they’re VATable.

Scottish Borders.

I’m a carpenter and charge £150 a day and would pay between £80-£110 for extra labour depending on who I had with me. London that is.

And as far as I know London Gas certs are £60 a piece roughly, so I doubt he would of saved £150!

OP where are you based? You’re gonn get different rates in different parts of the country. How big is the deck going to be? Height, steps, balusters, hard or soft-wood.

Ps. Don’t forget membrane, end-grain sealer….Spax screws ( wirox, coated 15 year warranty ) £45 per 1000 approx. Cheaper screws available… What bearers & rafters etc. C24?

Many factors to a deck…one man’s deck won’t be as good as the next man’s..ask him how many he has built and look at photos…

Totalshell, how much do you pay your lads per day!!

I’m in North Wales.

Size of deck is 3.5m away from house and 4.5m wide and 1m high from ground level to deck level. Then you have handrails all round with steps down to one side.

Not sure what’s being used wood/hardware wise. Im sure I will find out in the quote.

Cambridge rates (well what I paid for my Workshop).

Brickie £150/day worked like a dog, so that was 9-10 hour days of solid graft

Chippies for roof – £250/day for 7 hour days (but they did fit me in at no notice)

Tiler/Roofer – £130 / day, worked 8 hour day

im in swansea, i price my time at £180-£200 per day for me and a labourer. my rate on my own is £120 and the labourer gets £50-80 depending on the level of skill required/ who is available.

in truth though im not very good at pricing work and often end up with more like £100 a day 😳

makes note not to work for totalshell….

i used to be looking for 170-200/day if working locally (mid-Essex)…. 250 if travelling into the coty for work (longer travel/journey, parking, congestion charge and added stress).

used to pay a lad 45/day for a while before he decided to sell insurance.

*edit: should add, this was about six years ago. don’t know how that would compare to todays prices.

Chippy .£150 a day
Labourers £ 80-100.
In southwest

Ok, Had my quote. 2 Blokes over 5 days £1050.00.

Happy with that I think!

Lol……bet he’s only there for 3 days …..

Lol……bet he’s only there for 3 days …..

That was my thought, off to B&Q to buy 2 lots of chain and shackles. That should keep them there for 5 days 😀

I’ve got some building work going on at the moment – gang of 4 guys (one is the prime contractor – who I have a fixed price with for the work scope)
We are paying milestones, which also include paying the two young lads directly – they are £100 per day each.
(posh North Kent)

which also include paying the two young lads directly – they are £100 per day each.

Would that be cash in hand sir?

SouthWest (outside Bristol)

All per day.

Labourer: £60-80.
Plasterer: £125 (never seen anyone work so hard in my life, 7am to 6pm days with 20 mins for lunch, starting laying on plaster at 4pm some days!)
Carpenter: £125 (but you had to hire them as a pair, so £250 a day)
General Builder: £100
Electrician: £150
Plumber: All wanted £250->350 per day, so I did it myself.

You can pay a lot more, or a lot less but all the people I got had good reputations and knew each other, so if anyone saw anything shoddy they would take the piss so much the issues got fixed, as one persons bad work made his mates life difficult.

2 men, clued up, 3 x 4.5 meter deck = 3 days.

was stopped in the street today and asked to uncap the gas and issue a gas safety certificate as he’d sorted the leaky fire himself but couldnt work out how to reinstate the supply.. i was asked why i would want paying for what couldnt be more than 5 mins work..as i was already working next door.

All of the above = why I never do a job for “day rate”. I estimate for a job and expect that the client should be aware of roughly what it costs by doing a bit of research or getting other estimates. If they’re happy with the estimate then, whether I do it in two, three or four days or whatever is of no concern. Some days I may have to finish at 3 o’clock, some days I may continue till 5.30. If the job takes an extra day or two than planned then so be it, I don’t charge any extra other than for unplanned work or materials. How “hard” I work probably depends more on current workload and given the weather this week, the heat. You win some, you lose some. But working day-rate is a ballache. You’re just watching the clock all day and are being watched.

Best for the tradesman to work out the time the job should take, and add 15%.

Charging per day if you finish early they want to reduce the bill, or take out time spent discussing the job, drinking the tea they provide, or the few minutes late you arrived.

totalshell – Member
was stopped in the street today and asked to uncap the gas and issue a gas safety certificate as he’d sorted the leaky fire himself but couldnt work out how to reinstate the supply.. i was asked why i would want paying for what couldnt be more than 5 mins work..as i was already working next door.

Couldn’t you just have farmed it out to one of your poorly paid casual minions?

project – Member
Best for the tradesman to work out the time the job should take, and add 15%.

Why would you do that if you have worked out what the job should take? Lord almighty!

I would charge window cleaning at £240 a day for two men

project – Member
Best for the tradesman to work out the time the job should take, and add 15%.

Why would you do that if you have worked out what the job should take? Lord almighty

Because that allows a fee or charge for extra work and time taken you can also give it back to the customer as a sweetner if theyre happy with the job.

Obviously you work in an hourly paid job, and get paid for the hours you attend.

which also include paying the two young lads directly – they are £100 per day each.

Would that be cash in hand sir?

Nope – invoice every Friday and payment via bank transfer.
How they manage their Tax affairs is of no concern to me.

project – Member
Best for the tradesman to work out the time the job should take, and add 15%.
Why would you do that if you have worked out what the job should take? Lord almighty
Because that allows a fee or charge for extra work and time taken you can also give it back to the customer as a sweetner if theyre happy with the job.

Obviously you work in an hourly paid job, and get paid for the hours you attend.

Assumption is the mother of all **** ups. I’d imagine you probably make a lot of those.
Charging a refundable contingency for possible extra work appears you didn’t look at the job properly to start with and are afraid of making a mistake. That’s one of the most ridiculous practices I’ve ever heard of. Another would be offering a customer a refund/sweetener (that even sounds criminal) because you think you over charged. I wouldn’t trust you as far as I can spit.
My customers get a detailed itemised quote, including a scope of work, so they know precisely what the cost will be and what will be done for that cost. I don’t need to pad quotes because I work them out properly and know what my profit margin will be. Anything that falls outside of that scope of work would obviously be an addition and consequently alter the contract resulting in the customer having the option to include at additional cost the extra work.
This is called being honest and thorough. Sweeteners are for tea coffee and politicians.