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.

270 is not a rip off. 6 hours means probably the only job that day. Take off at least £70 of that for costs, that's £200 a day, max 1000 a week, max 52 000 a year. But that's with no pension or holiday pay or sick pay or days lost to quoting for work that isn't taken up. So actual take home will be much much less than that.

Tradies don't get sick pay, holiday pay etc.

Most tradies can't work full-time into their 60s and 70s.

Tradies don't get employer contributions to a pension.

Tradies' rates include travel time, fuel, van, insurance, training, professional membership etc.

Tradies don't do 8 hours a day of 'paid' work - a typical working day will include assessing jobs, providing quotes, collecting materials etc. That's before we get into the general time commitment of running a business.

Tradies have no guaranteed work. Some days/weeks/months will be busy. Some will be dead.

And if they're injured or have a sick child or a bereavement etc. then they earn nothing.

My point is, if you're paying someone 75 quid for an hour's work (for example) that doesn't represent an hourly rate of £75. They might have to spend several hours on the road that day, a couple of hours pricing up jobs etc. So for an eight hour day, £75 might be all they actually make - and that's before all the business costs outlined above.

Personally, I like knowing exactly how much I'll earn each month, not having to do unpaid work, having a workplace pension, and having holiday and sick pay - that's why I'm not self employed.

DIY means Do It Yourself - no charge for DIY.

All of this, plus the lack of security when it comes to sick pay, holiday pay and availability of work..

We've gone the other way! Have done lots of DIY and learnt that I love it, it's fun and creative and satisfying and it's opened our eyes to how much we were beholden to supply and demand.

I have a very good friend who's a carpenter and is working less but charging more since having kids and his take home has gone up as he's still in demand. He also says he prices fiddly or annoying jobs or jobs he just doesn't really fancy super high, like 3 times his usual rates. Then the customer is very likely to find a cheaper quote and not use him but if they still want to go with him it's a win win as he gets paid enough to make it worth his while. So I do sometimes wonder when I'm getting quotes if they are just looking at the parking and the steps and thinking it looks tedious getting in and out of my house so whacking on some extra for that.

I take a different tactic now of stating what my budget is for a job and the tradesperson can tell me what they can do within that. It might be sorry I can't help you or it might be that they can do the dangerous or specialist bit and leave the snagging to me. Or sometimes they've actually got started and then done a bit more than we agreed because they didn't have another job on that day which was a happy bonus. It helps us both know where we stand.

This.
I've recently launched my own business and if I want to achieve the same net income as in my last job, with comparable benefits (pension, holidays, insurance etc.), I will need to generate an annual turnover that is roughly 45% over my previous annual gross salary. There are so many costs to factor into a business, even a one-man business, you cannot possibly mistake the invoiced amount for what they actually pocket- unless it's an illegal uninsured cash-in-hand operation (which I'd never recommend using!)

I’m afraid that ship has sailed - look what the OP (a Teacher, don’t you know?) thinks of people who acquire these skills.
All my DC only got “careers” advice to “Get a degree”, neither did and neither has needed one.
Whilst I have nothing at all against getting a degree, it should be either Vocational, a means to getting a professional job that genuinely requires it, or even (if the young person is able to afford it) a means of expanding their knowledge while learning how to live independently.
Many of my DC’s friends, hoodwinked into the “you must get a degree” mantra started by the cynical Tony Blair in an effort to reduce unemployment figures (as PP’s have already mentioned) have completed their degrees to a decent level, and still can’t get any jobs other than what would have been considered School-leaver entry level, back in the ‘80s…

Thanks for this brilliant example breakdown. After pension, sick pay, holiday pay, it looks like the pay would be quite similar to a teacher. So the question is, whether the stress of being a teacher which can be horrendous, is worth more or less to an individual than the stress of being self employed which I know I couldn't be arsed with that kind of hassle and admin. Jeez i just had to do a tax return and I spent an hour crying at a spreadsheet. All for 4k of non emplyment income.

That s a good procurement strategy. You are offering a fixed price contract to the supplier for an agreed set of works. They don’t have to accept. I work for an advice organisation and the number of people who embark on quite expensive works with nothing agreed in advance, not even an email, is quite surprising!

£40 an hour seems reasonable to me. Especially if you're paying for someone's skills built up over years. You're also paying for his availability. It might have been New Years Eve and he was giving up precious family time, or who knows? Up to him. You might have struggled to find a tradesman with availability when it suited you. The fact that he lives nearby makes no difference. He'll have other jobs an hour away, he just has to take the 'hits' and benefits where they come. I also have a small self-employed sideline for which I charge £40 to £50 an hour. It's desk-based and, to my mind, not hugely skilled - because I've been doing it for decades. (It's writing based - everyone 'thinks' they can write). But if someone employs me they know that I will do the work much faster than they can, it will be 'spot on', accurate, with zero hiccups, or liability. This is the same with your tradesman. I also think you should put up your rates, £30 for a tutor is cheap. I paid £45 recently for a maths tutor for my son. (oh, and I'm also employed part-time as a teacher, so do understand the demands of the job!)

@Anyotherdude

Same generation. I was the first in my family to go to university. I was constantly hounded by my dad that I needed a degree to be successful in life. School were not much better and just wanted the stats whilst pandering to Blair's ideal. Nope I've ended up with a degree and in an admin job. Everyone around me doesn't have a degree in my sector and the few that have did it through their company. Obviously my career progression is my own standing in life not anyone else's. I was told university was the be or end all but in my family circles nobody was in those professional careers. I wanted to do an apprenticeship when I left school but was forced to believe that those where for the less academic (I'm not especially smart, highest grade B) and not for me. Instead of pushing me into university my dad should have stopped being an arse that hid away from people and directed me towards companies, social contacts and the like of the areas I was interested in. Ironically I now work in a similar industry to him. His employer did lots of father daughter days to encourage women to go into STEM. He promised he would take me but never did. Also at my current age he was earning a damn sight more than me without a degree.

I will not be forcing my children whatsoever to go to university unless their chosen career requires it. I think the days of moving away to university to experience 'life' whilst getting a qualification is beginning to change.

Yes. My late husband became too frail to cut the hedges and paid 'gardeners'* to do it. They kept putting our job to the end of the queue with the result that the hedge just got thicker and thicker and was never how it should be.

The final straw was when they kept putting off and we literally couldn't get out the gate. (NB I was willing to cut it myself, but DH was convinced that I'd hurt myself.)

In the end, I ignored his protests and cut the entrance myself. I then set to the rest of the hedge. It wasn't pretty, but I did it. I eventually got it licked into shape.

I never did admit to DH that I'd fulfilled his prediction of cutting through the cable...I'm afraid I was rather economical with the truth. I checked the price of a repair and buying a cordless hedge cutter was cheaper than a repair to the old corded one.

The hedge cutter has now paid for itself many times over. I do try to do simple jobs for myself, but some things are just beyond me.

I have tree surgeons coming this week and it's going to cost me £1,600....that's to remove one large tree, top another one and prune a crabapple. I was going to try to do the crabapple myself, but it's slightly too tall for me to manage without a stepstool. Once it's sorted out, I should be able to maintain it myself.

*I'm not convinced, given that the hedge was never shaped properly.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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.

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

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

Here the going diy rate is £25 hr.

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!