How much should a tradesperson charge in 2026?
The short answer: Most UK trades charge between £25 and £60 an hour, or roughly £240 to £480 a day, depending on trade and region. London and the South East sit 20–40% above the national average. But the day rate isn’t your wage — business costs take £6,450 to £9,000 a year off it before you do.
Every trade has had the conversation. Someone in the pub reckons he’s on four hundred a day, but clocks off at 2pm, and you do the sum in your head on the way home and it doesn’t feel like your life.
It probably isn’t his either.
So here’s the real picture, pulled from the people who actually publish this stuff — MyBuilder, Checkatrade, the ONS and the Department for Business and Trade — with the dates on it so you can see how fresh it is. Then the bit that matters more than any of it: what’s left after costs, and why 2026 is squeezing that number harder than usual.
Day rates by trade, 2026
These are the day rates MyBuilder publishes for customers, updated 21 May 2026.
| Trade | Typical day rate |
|---|---|
| Plumber | £320 – £480 |
| Electrician | £300 – £480 |
| Carpenter / joiner | £240 – £360 |
| Plasterer | £250 – £350 |
| Painter & decorator | £250 – £350 |
| Bricklayer | £240 – £320 |
| General builder | £150 – £400 |
| Labourer | £112 – £360 |
| Roofer * | £280 – £360 |
| Heating engineer * | £220 – £300 |
Hourly, the same source puts standard domestic work at £25–£60 an hour, rising to £60–£100 in London and the South East.
* Roofer and heating engineer aren’t on that page — those come from MyBuilder’s roofing guide (19 February 2026) and central heating guide (6 January 2026) respectively.
A word on why these ranges are so wide
Because the sources genuinely disagree, and you should know that rather than be handed a fake-precise number. Painters are the clearest example: MyBuilder’s May 2026 guide says £250–£350 a day, its own August 2026 update says £150–£250, and Checkatrade’s June 2026 cost guide puts the UK average at £325 plus paint. Same trade, same summer, a £175 spread.
Anyone quoting you one tidy national figure for a whole trade is guessing. Use the range, then price against your own patch and your own costs.
What trades report actually earning
Different question, different answer. Checkatrade publishes what self-employed trades report earning, as opposed to what customers get quoted. For a sole trader:
| Trade | £/hour | £/day | Data from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electrician | £45 | £330 | June 2026 |
| Plumber | £44 | £352 | May 2024 |
| Tiler | £40 | £320 | May 2024 |
| General builder | £40 | £320 | Aug 2026 |
| Bricklayer | £38 | £304 | Aug 2024 |
| Carpenter | £37.50 | £300 | Nov 2024 |
| Roofer | £37 | £296 | May 2024 |
| Landscaper | £35 | £280 | May 2024 |
Note that last column, because most articles won’t show it to you. Only the builder and electrician figures are current; the rest is 2024 data still sitting on the page in 2026. With materials and wages having moved since, treat the older rows as a floor rather than a target — and notice that the builder row, the one that has been refreshed, came up from £38 to £40 an hour.
Where you work changes everything
More than trade does, in some cases. MyBuilder’s regional tables for February 2026:
| Region | Roofer, £/hour | Tiler, £/hour |
|---|---|---|
| London | £40 – £60 | £30 – £40 |
| South East | £30 – £50 | £30 – £40 |
| Midlands | £25 – £40 | £20 – £30 |
| North | £20 – £35 | £20 – £30 |
| Scotland | £25 – £40 | £18 – £35 |
| Wales | not published | £18 – £35 |
For handyman work in December 2025 the spread was starker still: £50 an hour in London, £35 in the South East, £25 in the North West, £20 in Wales.
MyBuilder puts a number on it directly: London and the South East “consistently sit 20–40% above the national average”. Work the midpoints of the regional tables yourself and the gap looks wider still at the extremes — London handyman work at £50 an hour against £20 in Wales is two and a half times, not 40% more. Take the 20–40% as the reliable published figure and the rest as a sign of how far apart the ends of the country have got.
The practical use of this: if you’re pricing near a regional boundary, or you travel for work, you’re probably leaving money on the table on one side of it.
Callouts and out-of-hours — where the margin actually is
Emergency work is priced completely differently, and plenty of trades undercharge it out of habit.
- Electricians — call-out £40–£90 nationally, £50–£100 in urban areas and London. Emergency work £80–£110 an hour, and £75–£125 an hour for nights, weekends and holidays. Christmas and New Year call-outs run £80–£150.
- Plumbers — call-out averaging £70–£160. Weekday daytime £80–£120, late night £100–£140, weekends £120–£150, bank holidays £130–£180.
- Heating engineers — standard call-out around £75. Boiler-repair emergencies are quoted higher, at £100–£300 for the call-out alone before parts and labour, with the full job landing at £225–£675.
- Rural and distance work — cuts both ways. MyBuilder puts rural electrician call-outs at £20–£50, below the urban £50–£100, which is worth knowing if you cover a wide patch on thin margins.
Two honest caveats. Those figures come from consumer-facing guides that contradict each other in places — MyBuilder quotes the same electrician call-out as £40–£90 on one page and £80–£150 on another. And plenty of trades waive the call-out entirely on pre-arranged work, large jobs, or a first job for a new customer, which is a perfectly good commercial decision as long as it’s a decision and not a default.
The day rate is not your wage
This is the part that gets skipped, and it’s the part that decides whether you’re actually doing alright.
Checkatrade’s own figures put a sole trader’s annual business costs — vehicle, fuel, tools, insurance — at roughly £6,450 to £9,000 depending on trade. A landscaper around £6,453, a carpenter £6,914, a builder and a tiler £7,375 each, a plumber £8,113, a roofer about £9,000. Most of those come from 2024 data, so read them as conservative today.
Run it through for a plumber charging £350 a day:
| Day rate | £350 |
| Days actually charged — say 4 a week, 46 weeks | 184 days |
| Turnover | £64,400 |
| Business costs (Checkatrade, plumber) | −£8,113 |
| Before tax | £56,287 |
Two things jump out. First, the day rate looked like £91,000 a year if you multiplied it by five days and 52 weeks, which nobody works. Second, the number that moved the answer most wasn’t the rate at all — it was how many days you actually billed.
Being straight about what we don’t know: we went looking for solid UK data on how many hours a week trades lose to quoting, invoicing and chasing money, and there isn’t a credible published figure. Plenty of software companies quote one; none of them cite a survey. So we’re not going to invent a number. What we can say is that every hour spent on admin is an hour not in the four-days-a-week column above, and that’s where it hurts.
What’s squeezing rates in 2026
If it feels tighter this year, it is, and here’s the shape of it.
Materials are rising roughly three times faster than your prices. Building materials were up 6.0% in the twelve months to June 2026. Construction output prices rose just 1.9% over the same period — a gap of a little over four percentage points, and it comes out of margin.
Wages went up in April. The National Living Wage rose to £12.71 an hour for 21 and over, up 4.09%. For 18 to 20-year-olds it jumped 8.5% to £10.85. If you’ve got a lad, that’s already landed.
Employer National Insurance bites early. 15% above a secondary threshold of just £5,000 a year, with a £10,500 Employment Allowance to set against it. The Federation of Master Builders found 47% of members expecting negative impacts from the NI changes.
Diesel is dearer than petrol, as ever. Diesel averaged 181.97p a litre and petrol 162.15p in the week beginning 10 August 2026. Van miles cost more than car miles and always will.
Work is there, but orders wobbled. New construction orders fell 11.8% in Q2 2026 against Q1. Set against that, FMB members reported workloads up 22% and enquiries up 18%, and 48% were positive about the first half of 2026.
Good people are hard to find. 72% of FMB members were affected by a lack of skilled tradespeople, with carpenters, bricklayers and plumbers hardest to fill. If you’re good and reliable, that’s leverage — use it on price.
So how should you actually set your rate?
Not by copying the bloke in the pub. Four steps:
- Start from what you need, not what others charge. Take the income you want, add your business costs, divide by the days you’ll realistically bill — not the days you’ll work. That’s your floor.
- Check it against your region, not the nation. Use the regional tables above. A national average is the average of London and Merthyr Tydfil and describes neither.
- Price emergency and out-of-hours work separately. It’s a different product. Customers know it. Charge accordingly, and set a minimum call-out so a twenty-minute job doesn’t cost you a morning.
- Review it against materials, not annually out of habit. With materials moving 6% a year and some lines moving 17%, a rate you set eighteen months ago is a rate set in a different economy.
And put a validity date on every quote. Fourteen days is the common advice, and it stops you honouring spring’s steel price in autumn.
You can’t price properly on numbers you haven’t got
Every step up there needs one thing: knowing what you actually turned over, what you actually spent, and how many days you actually billed. Not a feeling. The numbers.
Which is why most trades price from the pub instead — because the numbers are in a carrier bag behind the seat and a spreadsheet that stopped being current in March.
That’s the job The Back Office takes off you. Quotes, invoices and receipts run through WhatsApp, the app already open in your hand. Voice note from the van and the invoice is logged. Photo of a receipt at the merchants and it’s filed and categorised. So when you sit down to work out whether £350 is enough, the answer is sat there instead of scattered across the van.
Straight with you: we don’t set your prices and we don’t file your tax return. What we do is keep your books tidy and digital all year, so you and your accountant can see the real numbers — and so you’re ready for Making Tax Digital while you’re at it. £29 a month inc. VAT, flat. In pounds.
Trade rates: quick FAQ
What is the average day rate for a tradesperson in the UK in 2026?
Roughly £240 to £480 a day for most trades, with plumbers and electricians at the top of that range and general builders and labourers spanning the widest. Hourly, £25 to £60 outside London and £60 to £100 in London and the South East.
How much more can you charge in London?
MyBuilder puts London and the South East at 20–40% above the national average. At the extremes the gap is wider — London handyman rates run around two and a half times the Welsh equivalent.
What should I charge for an emergency call-out?
Published ranges run £70–£160 for plumbers and £40–£100 for electricians during normal hours, rising to £120–£180 for weekends and bank holidays. Emergency hourly rates of £75–£125 are normal. Set a minimum charge covering the first hour, typically £40–£60.
How do I work out my hourly rate?
Take the income you want plus your business costs, then divide by the days you will realistically bill — not the days you will work. Business costs for a sole trader run roughly £6,450 to £9,000 a year.
Should I put my prices up in 2026?
Materials rose 6.0% in the year to June 2026 while construction output prices rose only 1.9%. If you haven’t moved your rate in that time, you have absorbed the difference yourself.
How often should I review my rates?
Tie it to your costs rather than the calendar. If materials, fuel or wages have moved meaningfully since you last looked, that’s the trigger — not January.
Nobody’s ever gone under from charging fairly for good work. Plenty have gone under from guessing.
Where these figures come from
Every number in this guide is linked to its source below, with the date we checked it. Rules and prices change — if you are reading this a long way from the date at the top, check the originals.
- Day rates by trade, hourly ranges, London and South East premium — MyBuilder, Builder day rate guide (updated 21 May 2026): mybuilder.com/handyman/price-guides/builder-day-rate
- Roofer and tiler regional hourly tables (updated 19 February 2026) and handyman regional rates (10 December 2025) — MyBuilder price guides: mybuilder.com/roofing/price-guides/average-cost-of-a-roofer · mybuilder.com/tiling/price-guides/tiling-cost · mybuilder.com/handyman/price-guides/handyman-hourly-rate
- Electrician and plumber call-out fees (both updated 23 December 2025) — mybuilder.com/electrical/price-guides/electrician-call-out-fee · mybuilder.com/plumbing/price-guides/plumber-call-out-fee
- Electrician emergency hourly rates (updated 10 December 2025) — mybuilder.com/electrical/price-guides/hourly-rate-electricians
- Heating engineer call-outs and boiler repair costs (6 and 21 January 2026) — mybuilder.com/central-heating/price-guides/central-heating-engineer · mybuilder.com/central-heating/price-guides/boiler-repair-cost
- Sole trader earnings by trade and annual business costs — Checkatrade trade earnings guides. Dates vary by trade and are shown in the table: builder updated August 2026, electrician June 2026, bricklayer August 2024, carpenter November 2024, remaining trades May 2024: checkatrade.com/blog/trade/
- London and South East “consistently sit 20-40% above the national average” — MyBuilder, Builder day rate guide (21 May 2026)
- Painter and decorator UK average day rate £325 plus paint — Checkatrade cost guide (June 2026): checkatrade.com/blog/cost-guides/painter-decorator-prices/
- Building materials +6.0% (all work) in the 12 months to June 2026 — Department for Business and Trade, Construction building materials commentary July 2026 (5 August 2026): gov.uk/government/statistics/building-materials-and-components-statistics-july-2026
- Construction output prices +1.9% and new orders −11.8% in Q2 2026 — ONS, Construction output in Great Britain (13 August 2026): ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/constructionindustry/bulletins/constructionoutputingreatbritain/latest
- National Living Wage £12.71 from April 2026 — GOV.UK: gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates
- Employer NIC 15%, £5,000 secondary threshold, £10,500 Employment Allowance — GOV.UK, Rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027: gov.uk/guidance/rates-and-thresholds-for-employers-2026-to-2027
- Diesel 181.97p and petrol 162.15p per litre, week commencing 10 August 2026 — GOV.UK, Weekly road fuel prices: gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-road-fuel-prices
- 47% expecting negative NI impacts, 72% affected by skills shortages, workloads +22% — Federation of Master Builders, State of Trade Survey H2 2025 (published 31 March 2026, n=493): fmb.org.uk/resource/state-of-trade-survey-h2-2025.html
All sources checked 14 August 2026.