That £26.50/hour for weeding is insanity?

[LaBellySausage]

I'm looking for someone to come around for 3 hours/week to help with weeding the garden.

I was given a couple of names of local people who do gardening. I expected to pay somewhere between £10-12/hour, perhaps £15/hour if the person was an experienced gardener. I believe minimum wage is £8something but I don't think people can live on that.

The first person wouldn't give a quote til they came to view the garden and then was hesitant to give an hourly rate, preferring to give a rate for 'the job'. It's not a job that can be finished- it's like when I shave my legs the bastards on the other one have started growing back when I start the second. I just want a few weeds less per week. He eventually said £18/hour. I thanked him for his time but said it was a bit more than I had budgeted. The second guy said £26.50/hour!

This is simple weeding. Trowel and hoe provided. £26.50/hour is about £55,000 annually.

I worked jobs like this while in uni at minimum wage. For reference, we live in a very inexpensive part of the country- he would not be weeding Chelsea Flower Show. Both candidates were local so didn't have more than a 5/10 minute drive.

Am I being unreasonable, or is this a crazy rate?

Why not put up some ads in the local post office, etc, for a teenager or 2 to take it on? It's really hard to find work when you're 14 or 15.

I doubt it would appeal to a horticulture student - it needs no expertise that you can't teach in 5 minutes.

I am reading this thread with incredulity. I live near Lewes. So, pretty pricey South East. I have a gardener who will start coming again this week. He is a gardener. He prunes, weeds, mows and advises on plants - purchases and plants them.
He 'odd jobs' in the winter to supplement lack of hours.

He charges £15 per hour. His minimum visit is 2 hours. My neighbour has a different gardener who also charges £15 as does my good friend in the next town (Uckfield).

These are not 'semi-retired' folk earning a bit of pocket money - they are running businesses and work hard with long hours between March - October. I don't have a cleaner at the moment due to Covid and I am WFH and the lack of commute plus older child back from Uni means we can do it ourselves. (I still pay her the 2 hours a week she would do but that's still only £20 a week but want her to come back when it's safe)

Again - this is the norm around here. (Agencies charge a bloody fortune up to £20 ph) but single self employed rate this is the norm. I'm so surprised by these rates. I thought north /north east was much cheaper due to the cost of living - by that I mean rent/mortgage.

This thread has been an education, mostly in how many people have no idea how businesses actually run. There seems to be a lot of people who think the hourly rate is the same as take home pay. That's.. just not how it works.

@Trickyboy

I am reading this thread with incredulity. I live near Lewes. So, pretty pricey South East. I have a gardener who will start coming again this week. He is a gardener. He prunes, weeds, mows and advises on plants - purchases and plants them. He 'odd jobs' in the winter to supplement lack of hours.

He charges £15 per hour. His minimum visit is 2 hours. My neighbour has a different gardener who also charges £15 as does my good friend in the next town (Uckfield).

These are not 'semi-retired' folk earning a bit of pocket money - they are running businesses and work hard with long hours between March - October. I don't have a cleaner at the moment due to Covid and I am WFH and the lack of commute plus older child back from Uni means we can do it ourselves. (I still pay her the 2 hours a week she would do but that's still only £20 a week but want her to come back when it's safe)

Again - this is the norm around here. (Agencies charge a bloody fortune up to £20 ph) but single self employed rate this is the norm. I'm so surprised by these rates. I thought north /north east was much cheaper due to the cost of living - by that I mean rent/mortgage.

Pahaha there are a lot I? of chancers up here! Chancers who want to work only a few hours per week, thank you very much, but want someone to pay them enough so that they're not inconvenienced by that choice!

I've actually got someone on my social media who has stray cats on her rural property. Every few months, she advertises the kittens for sale, with a statement saying she's going to get them all neutered with the proceeds. Been going on for years.
It's like they get the pound signs in their eyes when one or two people give them money.

OP I bet you're the type of person that expects a trim to be cheaper than a haircut.

£26.50 an hour for weeding suggests gardener didn’t want the job!

I can understand he wouldnt want to weed for 3 hours in case they never “finished” a border (not satisfying), been caught out by “I pay for weeding and still have to weed myself!” comments, or “share” the job with client. There’s too much potential for it to go wrong (for both of you!).

I’d expect to pay appreciably more for a gardener than for a cleaner. Even if the work was basic they’d be turning down higher paid jobs in order to do it. But I’d not expect £26.50 per hour!!

Greenland has no idea at all how self employed people earn money in these kinds of jobs clearly.

It's not a case of not wanting to work or being a little emperor. They don't get paid for the time they spend maintaining their tools, doing their books, seeking new business, giving free quotes, traveling between jobs, insurance, fuel, running a big enough vehicle to carry all their tools and all the million other things that go into running a business. Not to mention pensions and taxes and all those inconvenient things. The cost of those things doesn't change just because one person thinks the job can be done with a trowel. So their hourly rate needs to reflect all of the above otherwise their business will last 5 minutes. Or you can get a teenager who don't know their arse from their elbow to pull up all your seedlings for you.

I wonder what self employed people really earn if you divide annual profits by hours actually worked doing all aspects of their job. Not just the hours charged to a client.

Talk about infantalising teenagers- I am sure your average teenager would be able to identify weeds and pull them up once told. My nearly 14 year old will help my Mum do this as she has a huge garden and cannot do it all by herself at 72!

[quote LaBellySausage]@Junobug I view it in the same way as a cleaning job which people have to travel to. My cleaner charges £13/hour. The skill level is no different and the labour is of a similar intensity.[/quote]
But the gardener could potentially be taking on bigger jobs.

His rate will be his rate by the hour whether he's weeding or redoing the borders

That's ridiculous! I live in the SE and our gardener was £10/hr. He wasn't a landscape gardener, just weeding, trimming, cutting.

We've just done a loft extension and your quotes are more than experienced, much more skilled tradesmen. It's crazy.

£15/hr tops. Keep looking.

[quote LaBellySausage]@Retrogal I don't need any of those services. I only need weeding so just a trowel/hoe[/quote]
I don’t understand why you were getting quotes from qualified, experienced gardeners, then. Stick a card in your local newsagents or wherever, saying what you are actually looking for with the amount you are willing to pay. ‘Would suit teenager or student.’

YABU to assume the rate you are being charged is their actual wage. Self employed have to pay NIC twice- usually class 2 and class 4 out of the money you give them.
Self employed also have to have professional liability insurance
Self employed also have to buy all their own equipment and materials for a job
Self employed also have to pay to use a tip for any waste produced.

Out of a rate of £18/hr, they are probably only getting £10/hr to actually live on.

@ShesMadeATwatOfMePam

Greenland has no idea at all how self employed people earn money in these kinds of jobs clearly.

It's not a case of not wanting to work or being a little emperor. They don't get paid for the time they spend maintaining their tools, doing their books, seeking new business, giving free quotes, traveling between jobs, insurance, fuel, running a big enough vehicle to carry all their tools and all the million other things that go into running a business. Not to mention pensions and taxes and all those inconvenient things. The cost of those things doesn't change just because one person thinks the job can be done with a trowel. So their hourly rate needs to reflect all of the above otherwise their business will last 5 minutes. Or you can get a teenager who don't know their arse from their elbow to pull up all your seedlings for you.

I actually pay tax as a self employed person, as well as an employee.

Your skills don't just automatically become worth a fortune because you decide to become self employed.

I'm actually a bit of a whizz at working out my own tax. Did you know that in sone European countries, both the employed and the self employed can deduct their travel to work exirnses from their income tax bills? Believe it or not, only the self employed can do so in the UK. Empmoyed people gave to pay their own way to work and everything.

Your skills don't just automatically become worth a fortune because you decide to become self employed

If I spend 4 hours a day on work admin, promoting my business, doing free quotes, and 3 hours a day on a client job - and I charge that client £20 an hour, what is my actual hourly rate?

(And that's without thinking about putting any money away for pensions, sickness cover, holiday pay) that comes with employed work.

I'm actually a bit of a whizz at working out my own tax

So are you paid by the client for the time you spend working out your own tax? Or do you add that time spent to the hourly rate you charge a client - but only bill them for the time you spend with them on the job?

@chomalungma

I'm actually a bit of a whizz at working out my own tax

So are you paid by the client for the time you spend working out your own tax? Or do you add that time spent to the hourly rate you charge a client - but only bill them for the time you spend with them on the job?

I actually get paid about £40 an hour for highly qualified work as self employed, but pay 40% tax on it. But if I were to add in the research and preperation involved, it probably works out at between £5 and £15 an hour. But I do it because it keeps my hand in, it looks good on my cv and gives me contacts that might be useful in the future. And thats in an area that requires a degree, a postgraduate qualifucation and several years experience even to be offered that kind of opportunity.

(it's writing academic articles and speaking at conferences and in fact, I'm quite lucky to be paid at all, there's no "setting rates" - a it like the OP's role as a doctor, it's all very rigid).

Is there anything else you would like to criticise me for? Do working people who graft and have qualifications annoy you? Because you have some really unrealistic ideas about what the job market and market rates are really like.

And no, of course, I don't bloody "charge the client" for my own time silent working out my tax - I do it in my "leisure time". Tax isn't that hard once you sit down to do it, but what I do kniw is that a lot of the self empyed "expenses" on here are tax deductible anyway.

And no, of course, I don't bloody "charge the client" for my own time silent working out my tax - I do it in my "leisure time". Tax isn't that hard once you sit down to do it, but what I do kniw is that a lot of the self empyed "expenses" on here are tax deductible anyway

You do as such - because you charge more per hour to the client.

Which is why the hourly rate you charge your client is more than the hourly rate you end up getting for running your business.

So your £40 an hour you charge equates to £15 an hour actual paid work.

Because it's not leisure time when you are doing your tax. It's work time.

Businesses are not best served by charging based on “what I want to earn per hour”, or on “how skilled my job is”. They charge on “what client will pay”, setting a “minimum I’ll work for”. You might think it’s too much, but if that’s how much people will pay then that’s what’ll be charged.

So an hourly fee is often unpopular because gardener may think they have a feel for “how much this project should cost the client” and will reckon on “about half a day”. You’d not tell a plasterer “spend 3 hours skimming my walls please”, you’d be saying “skim all these walls” and get a quote for that.

It's like people who charge £15 to make a cake - which equates to an actual hourly rate of £3 an hour because they don't take into account all the other aspects of running a cake business.

And who undermine people who actually run a cake business and charge the actual amount needed to run a successful business.

That seems expensive.
Do you think it’s a standard price or depends on how much they think you can afford to pay?
I know when I’m trying to get quotes on anything, I hate giving my address as they automatically make a judgement based on it. An example, I needed 3 trees lopped in the garden. One guy, knowing the address, gave me a quote of £5k. Another guy, without knowing the address but having all other info with photos, quoted £1800.

@GreenlandTheMovie I trust your academic work is not in economics or a business subject

You may charge by the hour, but your actual rate is less.

[quote Weirdlynormal]@GreenlandTheMovie I trust your academic work is not in economics or a business subject

You may charge by the hour, but your actual rate is less.[/quote]
Exactly.

If you are doing any business related work, that is not leisure time. It's time spent running the business.

If you were doing extra work in an 'employed job', then you should be paid for it.

You don't directly charge the client for the time spent doing business related work, but you do indirectly charge them to compensate for that time.

Business 101

@typicalvalues

We were just given a bucket - told what was the plant planted and how to identify it by the leaves (aged 7 I never plucked up a few spuds) and told to pull everything around said plant. Such an easy job for a teenager to earn a few bucks.

I suspect the OP doesn't want to have to point out every plant she wants left behind in her 4 acre garden. So it probably couldn't be given to child labour.