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?

Where I live you pay a retainer for a gardener. So you pay the same throughout the summer and winter with the understanding that there is more to do in the summer than winter but it averages out at about £20 per hour.

I am in the SE.

I’d charge the going rate too if I was doing it. I’d still be benefitting from the historic and insidious sexism.

Cleaners in holiday parks don’t get paid more because the parks closed over winter do they?

@Greenmarmalade

Mine are.

I cannot believe anyone would pay over a tenner an hour for weeding. I’d do it for minimum wage- it’s just weeding and it’s nice to be outdoors most of the spring and summer too.

If you charged minimum wage as a self-employed worker, you'd probably end up taking home around £5-6 an hour once all your costs were taken into an account.

You could always try and find someone who is training to become a gardener, and give them a nice reference, as well as minimum wage (and maybe a cup of tea!) I'm training to be a gardener, and often the difficulty getting your first proper position is not having a reference, so if they were reliable and did a good job the reference would be really valuable. Maybe you have a local college who have horticultural students you could approach

I'm pretty sure if I asked my cleaner to identify weeds in my garden she wouldn't be able to.

gardeners work about 8 months a year. they have to earn12 months income in 8 months.

Some cleaners bring their own equipment too. It seems to me that the skill and effort level is a bit less than cleaning, or equal to it at best. So remuneration should be similar to that of a cleaner. You'd pay less if you supply the equipment, a bit more if they supply it.

Cleaners in holiday parks don’t get paid more because the parks closed over winter do they?

No, but presumably they do benefit from things like - secure job contracts, holiday pay, NI and pension contributions, annual leave, maternity leave/rights and sick pay. None of which apply to self-employed workers.

[quote LaBellySausage]@Distressingtimes yes I understand that but I asked if they did weeding. They said yes.

If a neurosurgeon advertised as also doing some cleaning work, I wouldn't expect them to be charging the same rate for their cleaning as their surgery.

They could just have said 'sorry I don't do weeding, I only do topiary copies of the Hagia Sofia'[/quote]
Well they do do weeding, and they charge the same for it as topiary on Hagia Sofia because that's their skill level and that's what their time is worth.

I can't understand why you find it so hard to grasp. If you don't want to pay that, don't, just pay a cheaper labourer and don't get upset when they mistake your prized peonies for weeds.

No advice but I have given up on finding a good cleaner or gardener.

It's been a waste of time, despite extensive research and detailed guidance and training I now have 3 bathrooms with corroded taps due to timescale remover being left on too long and a overgrown poorly managed garden.

Have you considered that they can get better paying work and don’t actually want crappy weeding?

I have at £30 per visit. Small but very busy gardens back and front.
I know it’s extortionate as he stays for only around 45 min each time.
HOWEVER, I couldn’t do without him.
He keeps the hedges trimmed, grass cut and everything else pruned. He is also reliable unlike his many predecessors!
I still miss our first gardeners... or rather ‘maintenance team’ 4 blokes in a van who piled in for 20 min max and cleared off before you even realised they had arrived. They were amazing! Proper team work! They did practically every garden on the estate but sadly moved on.

Gardening is a seasonal job. That had to be factored in. As does insurance, costs etc. Gardeners probably only work 8/9 months per year. I'm in a similarly season job. They won't earn 50k+ as there is a limit U.K. their time and resources. It's not the ass as
E as working a nmw paye job.

Years ago, there always used to be a ready supply of knowledgeable and reliable old yokels in flat caps who did a bit of jobbing gardening for a few hours to occupy themselves after they retired.

That's the sort of person you need, OP.

*Not the same as

£26.50/hour is about £55,000 annually Actually a good rule of thumb for freelancers is target salary = 1000 * the hourly rate so it would be equivalent to a 26.5K salary. This allows for holidays, business expenses, time working on the business, quoting, time without work, fixing errors, etc.

@VinylDetective what is the going rate and where do you live? Because I live in the NE where the average house costs £126,000. The average house in the SE costs £320,000. I'm not running some victorian workhouse. I don't understand the animosity.

Don't forget that a guy who charges . £26.50/hour isn't going to get that every hour. If he spends an hour getting to your place and setting up for 1 hours work he's getting half that really.

@MusterMark I already said I was wrong to extrapolate to annual salary.

You can't equate minimum wage to self employed. Minimum wage is for employees that have holiday pay, pension contribution etc.
Self employed have to pay their own tax, ni etc, then travelling costs. It also seems they are experienced gardeners, maybe look for a student or similar instead?

@Greenmarmalade

Mine are.

I cannot believe anyone would pay over a tenner an hour for weeding. I’d do it for minimum wage- it’s just weeding and it’s nice to be outdoors most of the spring and summer too.

But you'd have to do it instead of your real job. People are not doing it as a hobby. They have to pay their mortgage out of it.

@killickthere

gardeners work about 8 months a year. they have to earn12 months income in 8 months.

Not mine. He does hard landscaping in the winter months. Garden maintenance the rest of the year.

AppleKatie

Virtually all of the comments about the gardeners worth and overheads etc can also be applied to cleaners. Whilst they are true society only cares about the jobs traditionally done by men.

*No they can’t. Cleaning isn’t seasonal, it doesn’t involve being out in all weathers and the client supplies the tools.

My gardener’s a woman, by the way and she charges the going rate.*

This.
A lot of people on here are being a bit thick, or deliberately obtuse. The same people who would be horrified at being paid less than minimum wage I suspect

There're gardeners who are qualified, turn up in a van, with their own tools, and get a hell of a lot done in a day. They are worth £26.50ph at the very least.

Then there is Fred (*other names are available) from down the road who hasn't a clue, but has seen people turn up at other people's houses and get a good wage for gardening, and thinks he can do that just as well (he can't). You'll probably find Fred advertising in the local post office or news agent. He'll be able to fit you in straight away (good gardeners won't, they'll be booked up well in advance over the growing season). Fred will charge you £12.50, or £15 if he thinks you look rich or gullible, or both.

For a bit of weeding Fred will be fine, but go out there with him, and be specific about what you want left, or when he's finished you'll have a lovely tidy bare strip of garden with not a weed (or plant) in sight.

I employed a gardener for a big one off job, he did an amazing job very quickly. I've also employed a Fred. He worked out more expensive per hour as he did very little, very slowly.

My gardener mows the lawn, weeds, prunes stuff back etc, and charges £14 an hour. The job's done properly, he has a proper van and he takes all the waste away. I can't believe someone is trying to charge nearly double that. And my area isn't cheap.