To think that tradesmen take the piss with their rates?

How did you set that rate?

Out of interest, would you take a half day's unpaid leave to tutor your "mate's" kid for £20 for one hour at their house?

My DH gets endless requests like this because he did a good but bigger job for them once when things were quiet. People then seem to think they then own him for every random weekend blocked toilet because they don't want to pay an emergency plumber or god forbid get some drain rods and poke their own shit out! I'm cross because DH is a mug and always goes and does it at the expense of our family time 🙄

Public liability insurance, Gas safe registration every year, tools insurance, running a van, buying parts. DH’s expenses are iro £12k a year so that’s £250 a week before he makes a penny.

Yes, some tradies take the piss, ironically they are likely to be the ones without proper insurance etc.

I charge £50.

The guy is a chancing greedy chunt, charging top end for a cash in hand/tax dodge job.
I'd've gave him 200 quid and told him I won't tell the tax man if you don't.

If you just tutored, without any other income, how much would you charge to give yourself a decent income?

You would have to be realistic and think about how many hours you would get of actual paid work, school holidays, unavailability of students etc

That's great about your stepson. My nephew is doing an apprenticeship with John Deere, and he worked part time as a mechanic his last two years of high school (not UK), and honestly I couldn't be prouder, or more confident that he's going to be set for life.

Where I live builders charge a minimum of £250 per day plus materials.
I pay someone to do DIY for me. Some may say that it's not necessary and I could do it myself but I think it would tip me over the edge to do it myself. I work full time, I run a business on the side and I'm a single parent to teenagers. I literally can't cope with any more so I pay someone to do it. I think because there are lots of people like me who are too exhausted to do their own DIY the people who can do it as a job are going to be reasonably well paid. I would rather pay for that than new clothes or getting my hair or nails done etc. I need a hand so it's worth the money. It's going to be expensive as not many people want to go into the trades. It's much better paid than most other jobs.

Nail on the head. "Mates rates" only really works when it's reciprocated. That's why you find tradesmen often work for each other for free or material cost only - they're favours which will be called in by the other eventually and will balance out. What exactly is the OP doing for this "mate" for which they expected a hefty discount? Were they going to give a few hours free tuition in return for a few hours free DIY work??

The pull string light sounds expensive but the rest sounds reasonable and standard I'd have thought.
As others have said you can retrain if you want to. And it's not a new thing tradesmen charging a fair amount either. Do the job yourself for free or pay someone else to do it. Or retrain.

Quite possibly! I wasn’t saying he should have offered mates rates just that it might be a situation where the customer might expect them.

Why do so many people feel entitled to mates rates? Why should anyone be expexted to take a day off paid work to work for cheap for someone else? It's like asking a teacher to take unpaid leave and come and tutor you kids for tuppence hapenny instead! Maybe this guy is pissed off at being undervalued, taken advantage of or called in for favours all the time? Perhaps he's actually hoping not to be asked back!

Here the going diy rate is £25 hr.

Cash in hand for a close neighbour you might have expected mates rates but clearly not!

You'll probably find that if they're there anyway doing the big job then pruning the crab apple won't be much difference in price

Yes, we bought a Stihl cordless and the best investment ever for the hedges. I also don't mind paying a skilled tradesman to do something I can't do...I'm shelling out £3500 for two sets of bargeboards to a really good joiner who did all our oak windows...he's a childhood friend of DH and excellent. The scaffolding costs him to remove the old stuff and replace the new and to check the soffits. Fair enough. I think it is just the being faffed around I don't like...booking an appointment for an estimate and they don't show, that sort of thing. Or we'll cut the hedge if you provide the equipment and clear up after us...I mean, really.

I used to run a podiatry business which I'm retired from now. I do the odd bit of consultancy now. I could have charged £50 for a simple nail cut for a pensioner but I did not because I'm not a money grubbing monster. I had a special day for them on much lower rates. I made my money on the high end treatments that people who could afford it paid for.
Just because you can charge a fortune doesn't mean you have to.

Similarly, one of our light switches broke. DH was going to call an electrician, but I researched it, figured out what type of switch we needed and watched a video on how to change it. Took 5 mins to change.

(Then I changed a second one that took me 45 mins because the bastard was so tight to a wall!)

Same. Our toilet was constantly running. DH couldn’t fix it, was going to book a plumber. One YouTube video and a long screwdriver and I fixed it in 5 mins.

Good traders are as important to public welfare as good teachers and I wholeheartedly agree that traders need intelligence as well as practical skills. Snobbery about this kind of work is very misplaced, as is the idea that someone can run their own business and do a good job for a low hourly rate. My stepson is about to retrain as a plumber since his creative/tech work has declined, and I'm delighted for him.

You’re paying a very highly skilled person to DiY jobs.

If the headteacher has to cover assisting in reception she doesn’t get paid less.

The real question is why you agreed to pay such a huge amount to a supposed 'friend'/ neighbour for doing these tasks. Is this someone you feel sorry for, and are trying to help out financially? Did he tell you in advance how much he'd charge you? Did you consider getting someone else instead?

Why are you referring to "6 hours work" for what you then describe as a scant 4 hours of actual work? When he said it would cost you £270, did you point out that this equated to £67.50/ hour? (which is a bit steep even for a fully qualified/ experienced/ insured tradesperson with travel costs)

Tradespeople are likely to charge what they think people are willing to pay them. But these are definitely not 'mates rates' so I am left wondering why you consider this man a friend? It sounds like he is taking advantage of you, and I would recommend looking for other handypeople in future.

I now agree that their rates are fair and will definitely steer my DS towards a trade if he doesn't seem to be academic.

Steer him that way anyway. The trades shouldn't be a second choice for the less academically-able. Every properly good tradesman I've dealt with has also been clearly very intelligent.

Going to university has never been a guarantee of a well paid job and certainly is not at the moment.