To think that tradesmen take the piss with their rates?

This isn't necessarily the case. Sometimes they want paying in cash because they pay others in cash and it saves going to the bank. If it was for tax avoidance purposes you have willingly engaged in doing so.

What mystifies me is that a teacher can't work out how their rates would reflect all sorts of other overheads such as insurance , woukd be gross of tax, pensions and travel time etc.

Washing machine repair man walks into a kitchen and thumps the side of the washing machine. It starts working perfectly. Customer says " I'm not paying 70 quid for 1 minutes work". Washing machine man says " You're not paying for the 1 minutes work. You're paying for the 20 years of experience in knowing exactly where to thump it to make it work ".

Retrain to do something else then

Yes sometimes I do think tradesman costs are a bit high. But they don't finish at 3.30 and have 12 weeks holiday or a generous pension scheme.

£360/day for a skilled worker is NOT a ripoff

I don't think its as much as you think it is when you take into account out of that they need to buy / maintain transport, tools, equipment, and this is a gross figure so they'll have to take out tax, sick leave, holidays, travel time, down time when jobs are cancelled, unpaid invoices etc

IMHO teachers should be paid a lot more. As should NHS employees and carers. They’re vital, socially valuable and necessary jobs.

However@Pomegranatecarnage, you described the jobs as DIY but then didn’t do it yourself. All the jobs you paid for were basic DIY jobs that can easily be done yourself with the right online research, preparation and tools (which can be borrowed, including from community tool libraries, or hired).

I’m a lone parent in a very stressful and demanding job and I’d tackle all those jobs myself. The key is to take your time and think things through. There are tons of YouTube videos showing you how to do things. And lots of chat forums (including this one) to ask advice. Plus, you can ask for advice on parts and tools from local independent hardware shops. The man who used to run mine (who sadly died a couple of years ago) was like a surrogate dad to me when it came to DIY advice.

But if you’d rather pay someone, they should expect a decent hourly rate, so they can (as they should do so we have money to pay teachers and NHS staff) pay tax and NI.

Its all supply and demand.

There’s been a significant push towards university degrees and corporate jobs so tradies are far fewer these days but they are in higher demand. Their ‘worth’ is just what someone is willing to pay, same as any skill/trade, so they don’t need to price competitively as long as they’re in demand!

Well, there are prostitutes who get £5,000 an hour (I am not one but nice work if one can get it..).

It really isn't a question of your training or the importance or difficulty of your job. It's a question of how much someone needs you to do it.

I totally agree that teaching is unbelievably underpaid. It is a really demanding job, and really important. However, unless you go and teach English in Dubai, or work up some popular you tube channel, you are always going to be subject to UK market rates. Online tutoring is a bit better but still variable. Managing a class, especially of children, is a very big job and the money just doesn't reflect the skill, input and responsibility. Yes, you would get more as a dustbin lady.

With tradesmen, the thing is that they can do critical stuff that we all need. So they can charge a going rate, and will modify this according to how much they think they can get. A rich and/or pliable client will get charged more. Of course.

£75 for the light pull is a bit OTT. The pull itself costs about £1.25. If he just replaced the cord then that is a 1 min job. If he unwired the old one and connected up the new one well then that's very specific skill, so you pay for that skill rather than the time.

With a lot of tradesman work, it is about the job being done rather than the time it took.

You chose to pay a neighbour cash so you can't complain about it really. £270 for a day's work is quite high for cash but if he was doing electrical work then maybe that's why. If someone else did the electrical work then of course you have a min. call out for them to come to you.

Next time shop around if you don't like the price. Someone else will usually do it a bit cheaper.

They also don't get 12+ weeks paid holiday a year, sick pay, pension contributions, maternity/paternity pay (SMSP is a joke) ...

You sound like you think you are better than him.

Ot is the same if you take your car to a garage for a service or repair

You pay for their equipment ? knowledge & time

Or you do it yourself

This one’s on you for paying for things you could easily do yourself. There’s a premium for convenience, and you paid it. If you weren’t willing to pay it (I wouldn’t be) they’d inevitably end up charging less.

"Retuning to", not "entering"
That's the way it always used to be until Blair's brainwave of 'persuading' every kid to go to uni, thus showing an enormous drop in youth unemployment figures

If its so quick and easy and cheap to do then why aren't you doing it yourself?

You are paying for your laziness/convenience/cheapness (many councils have low cost controlled programs for disabled/elderly/vulnerable members who can't do it themselves) their time still has value.

I'm looking into buying a reno, many jobs by the time I bought the tools and supplies its cheaper and easier to hire a pro (especially for small jobs). I also would have to store all that equipment that I may never use again.

Unlike your 'teaching job' where you have an employer and unions they likely are self employed and have to:

• book all their own jobs
• pay for advertising
• lose time driving place to place (which can make up most of their day on small jobs)
• supply most things
• lose money on estimates that turn out to be harder or that people don't book

• sometimes even risk their lives (electricians never know if someone has DIYed etc... one got shocked not long ago when he isolated the downstairs circuit and someone had crossed two circuits via the boiler, the heating switched on creating electrical a loop - boom).

In this day and age more than ever you could just google how to do it or put together your own bookcase (flatpacks come with instructions specifically for anyone to do its not a specialist labour like gas fitting etc...).

No sick pay, no holiday pay, retraining to renew licences, accountant fees, list is endless.

My husband is retired. He works occasionally as a consultant . He charges £500 an hour ( or part of). He can be paid that £500 for a ten minute phone call. He has knowledge someone wants and they are happy to pay for it. No pay, no info. Domestically he can do basic electrical work but that's where his practical skills end. We get three quotes for a job that we can't do ourselves and choose based on price and comfortableness of having someone around. Happy to pay for someone's skill

OK what reasons? VERY few people want cash for anything other than tax ‘planning’ these days. You know that really, this is just whataboutery. If you take cash on a job you need to record it, bank it, possibly pay for the transaction. Requesting cash in large amounts is suspicious at best.

It’s just a way of pushing away the responsibility and washing your hands of guilt. The black economy is very real.

They pay their tax and national insurance contributions out of their pay, they don't have employer contributions to their pensions nor do they get holiday pay. Most of them will be paying vat out of your invoice too, and that's before insurance and travel, tools, skills.
so many people are clueless to the costs of being self employed.

Yep, enjoy!

This. You are paying for the van full of tools and spare parts that he turns up in and for the time he spent picking up parts for your job before he arrives to actually do it.

Lots of videos on You Tube explaining how to do simple jobs like replacing a light string.

One would have hoped for a more intelligent understanding of a tradesperson's situation from someone who's a teacher.

The alternative is to learn to fix things yourself

That's not in including material. She said that was labour charge. Its about £70 an hour

Mind you I wouldn't have dreamed of getting someone in to do a pull cord light or toilet valve tbh.

My household fixed something recently ourselves

It took 2 trips to the trade shop to obtain the correct parts - cost for parts
Petrol
Tools which we already had
Time to fit
Time to clear up

A trades person would need to add insurance on top & tax

I quit teaching to retrain as an electrician, I charge £350 a day as a commercial/industrial specialist electrician, plus an average mark up of 50% on materials - my advice, get out and retrain, there is a skills shortage.

Worth pointing out though OP, I have to do my own accounting and pay my own taxes, no PAYE, I have to buy expensive equipment, have things calibrated, pay insurances, run a van, pay my own NI, again its not deducted before my payday, no gold plated TPS pension.

I still earn more than a teacher - but I have 5 years training to be where I am on top of my degree (which was in Electrical Engineering) and have a hell of a lot of responsibility, when I sign off on a job, I'm committing myself to the ongoing safety of that work.