To think that tradesmen take the piss with their rates?

[Pomegranatecarnage]

Just that really. I have had a few repairs needed and some DIY recently. I paid £130 to have a leaking toilet valve fixed (it took 45 mins), £75 to have a pull string light replaced (10 mins) and then £270 labour for 6 hours work putting up some shelves, a small area of tiling and replacing skirting boards. He arrived at 10, left at 12 for lunch, back at 2 then was finished by 4pm. I can’t help wondering why I spent 5 years at University to get paid far less per hour as a teacher.

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

You sound like you think you are better than him.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

Retrain to do something else then

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 ".

I think what people are paid depends mostly on supply and demand.

At the moment trades are low in supply and the demand is high. Ergo probably sensible to ditch teaching and retrain in a trade if a high income is a priority for you.

Kids are generally misinformed at school as to which careers/jobs will provide which levels of income. Passing exams at high grades doesn't guarantee high income. I have two self made multi millionaire cousins in my family, both got rubbish GCSEs and no further formal qualifications. The cousins who earn the least have degrees.

I think there is huge disparity in what value people bring and what they are paid in our society, that's the capitalist system for you.

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.

So now your complaint is that because you supported the black economy, robbed the HMRC of a fair bit of cash, you feel ripped off?

So, I'm pulling on my coat to go to a customer, they have random tripping of an RCD on a split load board off a TN-C-S supply.
Its a Neutral Earth fault, or rather cumulative IR breakdown across 10 circuits.

Do you know what I'm on about OP, could you fix it - that's what I earn my money for, specialist knowledge and skill, that is learned through 3 years at college and years in the field.

It is expensive to get people in to do odd jobs, however the way you have judged it is wrong, it's like saying teachers get paid enormous amounts for the actual time they work because they have short days and long holidays. We all know there is more to it than just the time you see them working.

I don’t know why we are not making it easier to acquire these skills - schools around here provide little information on degree alternatives - everything is geared for Uni

It's a failing of the comprehensive system.

But but but the OP went to university don't you know! I've got a review meeting on Thursday with our Electrical Apprentice. Lovely lad. Next week is the review with our Apprentice Joiner - dyslexic kid who barely got a pass at GCSE but he knows how to fit a kitchen, hang doors, etc. I'm happy knowing that both those lads, through hard work and determination, will be earning more soon than the OP and her snobbery.

I can see where you are coming from op. We were quoted £75/hr labour rate for laminate flooring a few years back. That is not a particularly skilled job. He wanted us to supply all materials and to move all the furniture and to dispose of the old carpet. Yes they have insurance but so do we as medical professionals. In the end we did it ourselves and it only took us a weekend to get a good finish. We spent £30 on tools. We watched 2 YouTube videos. It's different for electricians and plumbers and skilled building work but this flooring guy was in demand and that was why he could charge more. Cleaners near me charge £25/hr, customer supplying own products, only accepting clients within a a very small 1 mile radius. Yes they have insurance but I've done cleaning in the past and so I know it wasn't much. It's just supply and demand. A lot of the private sector are getting paid more now but the public sector has stagnated for the past 5 years. I've got a teacher friend who is training as a plumber in evening classes.
I think there is an unhelpful view by some that public sector workers still get paid too much (thinking back to the final salary pensioner types) but we are very good value and loving a very frugal and modest lifestyle. I hope our wages go up eventually to match inflation.

It's not that I think tradies earn too much, more that public sector workers should earn more. Everyone who works hard and makes sacrifices for their career deserves to be comfortable, regardless of their career path

Those rates sound ok to me. It’s quite arrogant to assume because you’ve been to university for five years your time is somehow worth more than that of tradespeople.

ive had a lot of work done on my house. Work I could not possibly have done myself and I went to university for four years so only one year less than you!

I ordered some flat pack furniture the other day fully intending to put it together myself. Opened the box and it was more complicated than I thought and some of the pieces are heavy too. Decided to pay a handyman to do it. Worth it in my view.

Just glad there are now handymen around to do all these small jobs.

I do the total opposite, anyone asking me how to get the kids into medicine, tell them just don't do it fullstop. Skip uni be an electrician or plumber!

Op, you are aware that most tradesmen have completed a 2-4 year apprenticeship early in their career to learn their skills and the apprenticeship also usually involves day or block release to college.
My son has recently started a 4-year engineering apprenticeship, he'll be paid minimum wage which isn't great and he has to work the odd shifts each month in what was his previous part-time job to give him a little extra cash.
His 1st year will mostly be spent at a training centre learning all the basic skills required to be remotely useful to his company plus day release to college, all at a considerable cost to his new employer. He'll then continue day-release at college for the remainder of his apprenticeship while out working in the field learning from highly skilled & trained tradesmen. During this time his employer will provide protective clothing & equipment and going forward any tools required for the job and a van. He's just 1 person within that relatively small company.
Apprenticeships and the skills developed from the training are highly sought after (and also pitched at many different levels including degree).

You should compare like with like, that is fair - so you should compare your salary after 5 years at uni with the salaries of investment bankers, some of whom also spent 5 years at uni.

I don't know how old you are, but to compare the physical side of work of a poor sod who is bent double to fix your valve (digging the road, tiling the roof) at age, say 50, to the genteel physical endeavour of a teacher/officer worker is wrong. If anything, they should be charging more.

There was also an excellent comment here - about tools, driving to/driving from and being self-employed - no paid holiday, no paid paternity leave, no paid compassionate leave, etc. no luxuries which full-time teachers somehow take for granted.

But I see what you are saying - in my opinion, teaching is the most important job in the world, not just subject teaching, but brining up new generations the right way. Of course you should be paid more, of course you should be afforded more respect, but we should leave any comparisons with physical jobs out of it, I think.