To think that tradesmen take the piss with their rates?

Yanbu op.

But the way around it is to start doing it yourself.

It's no where near as onerous as you might imagine for many jobs. You just need the right tools and you tube.

Only pay for the jobs that actually do need training/skill.

Brilliant. You think you’re smarter than these people, and yet….

If you don’t want to pay the going rate for skilled tradies then YouTube is your friend…or not 😉

We charge £95 + VAT per hour in hours for domestic jobs. £110 + VAT for weekends and after hours. Our equipment is very expensive, our insurance costs a bomb and the guys have to be well trained. Plus no-one really wants to deal with what they have to deal with, so we pay well. 😁

I think your educational snobbery is showing, op. A skilled job is a skilled job - and the demand for tiling, building, plastering, electrical work, etc is huge. If your teaching salary is a cause for concern (and actually, I don't disagree) then campaign and lobby for better teaching pay, don't whinge about the cost of skilled manual work. It's not a race to the bottom.

OP as a teacher who presumably wants a pay increase you should not be assisting tax dodgers, or do you think you should get a pay increase and also at the same time not have to pay any tax? I really hope you don't teach maths or economics.

How much an hour would you charge to tutor a child for their entrance exam? £20? £25? I bet you laugh at someone paying those prices to you no?

We very luckily found a great plumber who I just trust, and who recommends tradesppl to us (we have for sure been stung with bad work--we just found out a pipe we paid someone to remove from an external wall was instead hammered back into the wall and has come right through the internal plaster in a bedroom 😾). Anyway, this good plumber charged us 70 for the leaky valve. We're not in a city but reasonable sized town so maybe that's something to do with it, but yeah, almost half the price you were quoted!

Always good to get three quotes ahead of work, but even getting people to show up after agreeing to do the work is incredibly difficult. I'm going to learn to repoint lime mortar as I just can't face another person destroying our gable wall further! (Though I'm already a skilled worker so practical in that way).

If you take into account all the tax-payer benefits teachers get, that self-employed people have to fund themselves (pension, sick pay, holiday pay, providing themselves with tools for the job), of course he's going to charge more per hour than you earn.

Absolutely right.
A lot of university degrees are an utter waste of time and money nowadays.

Skilled trades, especially if a person has a natural talent for it are much more useful and lucrative.

@Pomegranatecarnage These trades need relevent qualifications, including English and Maths and several years to qualify.

I bought a leather item recently, custom made, the person who made it won awards for their saddlery skills, their hand stitching is beautiful.
Standards are incredibly high for a lot of the skilled trades.

Insurance, very expensive tools that need constant replacing and maintaining, petrol, the countless hours spent quoting, sourcing parts and collecting materials... you're getting a good deal.

Trades are well paid but that's good for them. They're paid waaaaaayyy more tha my hourly rate as as Dr, hence couldn't afford during my house renovation so me and my partner (IT manager) taught ourselves on YouTube. String lights are super easy to replace, skirting pretty easy once uve bought a mitre box (have done 4 rooms of the house), taught ourselves plastering after getting so annoyed at crappy jobs with holes and tiger stripes everywhere so did the small bathroom ourselves. It's fairly easy once you have the tools, that's the main outlay

But tradespeople won’t be working the full year, they will have periods where they have no work. If you’ve ever lived with tradesmen during a recession when houses aren’t getting built and people aren’t doing renovations then it’s slim pickings. In those times we still have a job and don’t lose out financially.

If you think the jobs are too expensive, you have the option of doing them yourself. There are tons of YouTube video tutorials and you can crack on at a fraction of the price! And then, when you've flooded your house, electrocuted yourself and all your precious belongings have come crashing off the shelves, these rates might not seem so expensive after all!

Yes, that's certainly not the experience I've ever had.

Why should someone who has probably done an apprenticeship for several years be paid less than their worth? Do you think you're worth more because you went to university for 5 years? could you do their job? if not, why not?

Maybe you should have only gone to uni for 3 years and spent 2 at college doing a vocational course. Then you would have been invincible.

I very much disagree.

With the updates this seems like an extreme case. A tradesman that crossed the road to do the job, didn't use his own tools, didn't pay NI, didn't do the agreed hours etc etc.

By the end he hardly becomes representative of all (or even most) tradesmen.

I'm not defending shoddy tax dodging traders btw as (dripfed) sounds like the case here. But I am defending people who have learnt skills over decades who charge what they need to make a livng and don't deserve to be labelled under "all tradesmen take the piss". Some do take the piss obviously, as do a lot of workshy people across all industries.

But, before all tradespeople are written off when anyone is considering hiring someone or judging their time on a job, do please consider where the materials and tools come from to do a job. An hour's round trip to collect? Are they from more than one supplier? How long to look at the job in the first place, sourcing materials, quoting and invoicing?

How many other jobs could that person do in a day around the job?

Have you asked if the job is cheaper for cash? Because contrary to popular belief, many people demand this, not realising that there is often no benefit to the tradesperson at all! They still need money in the bank to be able to pay their bills and still need to pay tax on it!

She should have taken it up when she asked for a quote
If she was shocked at the price she should have shopped around.
But it looks like she just thought she'd be able to bung him a few quid, with him not going to uni.

Yes

Absolutely true..the Skilled trades most definitely have to study to earn relevant qualifications related to their trades.

I actually respect skilled trades over a two bit uni course these days.

But your neighbour is still a skilled person. If you didn't ask for a quote then that's your fault. He wasn't going to charge you less because he lives nearby, you supplied the parts etc. You are paying for his time and expertise. I don't understand why you don't get that!
FWIW I've had loads of work done in my house recently. I've employed a builder who lives in the next street to do some. I didn't expect a discount because he lives nearby. I expected to be charged the rate for the job. The plumber who fixed a leak in my bathroom, which involved taking out the bath, sorting it out and re fixing the bath lives nearby. Again I paid the rate for the job. It took hours to do. It was a skilled job. Just like teaching.

I’d hope the op will learn from this post and give better careers advice to their pupils rather than the stereotypical advice that you have to go to uni to be a success!

Yes, this is all true. I'm with you.