Is £25 an hour reasonable for grass cutting rates

[Marika1994]

So I have a large lawn, takes my gardener 2 hours to cut an edge. Edging the lawns are a big chunk of the time. Is £25 an hour an OK price for grass cutting? He says he charges £20 an hour for basic maintenance and that the extra £5 an hour is to help towards cost of expensive machines.

Zelda,why is cutting my lawn twice a week bad for the environment? It's north facing,it grows fast? Have already said I often use a push mower, the other is electric...that's not bad for the environment either. My lawn is neither fed,or watered,it has celandines in spring,then daisy's and clover. I grow for pollinators, have an orchard... apple,pear,plum,cherry, apricot,peach fig I grow a lot of my own veg,all year round. We have a wildflower area around the orchard, specific planting. 6 water butts,3 large compost bins. An 8th of an acre. Solar panels, what am I doing wrong them!

Not unreasonable if he is providing all equipment

We pay a little less than this but the gardener uses our ride on lawnmower, but brings his own strimmer, etc

Firstly, doctors aren’t paid £14 an hour for long. Secondly, they don’t have to pay for the hospital they work in or the equipment they use. Thirdly, they are paid from when they start work to when they finish.

A gardener charging £25 an hour seems pretty reasonable to me…Tesco will pay £12ish an hour, and there’s more skill and training involved in gardening. A gardener will need a few thousand pounds of equipment and PPE, plus a van to run around in. So even being conservative, they are in for £10k to £12k of assets needed. If they last 3 years that’s £4K a year, and assuming 1,500 productive hours a week then that £2.50ish an hour. So now we’re at £14/15 an hour. Add in insurance and fuel. Say another £1/£2 an hour. £17 an hour in cost. Chuck in some employers NI and profit and I don’t see what the problem is.

The beauty of the market is that people will pay what they think somethings worth…I think the mugs are those who try to keep the ‘low paid’ in their place as a result of some outdated view that their office/management/government job is more valuable to society!!

ironing I pay price work for anyway. ;)

Or pushed a heavy mower atall especially when the grass is damp or long , up a long hill several times , striped a lawn to perfection ,managed to not scalp a bumpy lawn when a customer needs it really short.

They may be paid more, but when you deduct all their expenses, they don’t earn more

Grass cutting and gardening are two different things. The actual gardeners I know don't cut grass. That is not a skilled job and anyone can set themselves up as such. An actual gardener IS skilled, usually qualified and has vast horticultural knowledge.

People here thinking that employed people don't have any costs or outgoings associated with work 🤣

£25 is expensive for grass cutting which can be done by a teenager.

I pay that for my experienced and qualified gardener. For grass cutting I don't pay more than £15.

Well minimum wage is 10.42, on which you earn statutory holiday pay so really the least you get paid per hour is £11.70. Then you have to account for NI and pension contributions. It will cost the average employer of a shop assistant or admin staff closer to £14per hour having an employee so that should be more of the base rate for self employed people. They need to consider pensions/ ni contributions/ holiday pay/ / bookkeeping too.

Then you have to account for time between jobs. If you work an 8 hour day but lose an hour repacking kit, driving to next house. Then your effective rate of pay drops down from £20 to £17.50 for example.

The cost of having a work vehicle is high. Perhaps you invest £15 000 in a work van. You plan to run it for five years sell it on for £5000, Your business plan tells you it will cost you on average £5000 (for example) per year to insure, tax, mot, maintain and fuel. In order to recoup your investment/cover costs over the five years you will need to charge customers £4.35 per hour, 35 hours a week, 46 weeks of the year.

I’m always slightly bemused by these threads. I feel like it’s obvious that self employed people have additional costs and will have to account for them within their rates.

I should add we provide the mower and the fuel.

I would put grass cutting on a par with house cleaning in terms of skills.

Its likely area dependant, what state your garden is currently in and the size of your garden. I recently paid £150 for my grass cutting and Ivy removing from the back garden wall. I thought it was steep at first... after he had completed the job. £150 was worth every penny. Its a one off though and I obviously wouldn't pay that more than once a year I will maintain it myself.

Its still a very much needed service most people wanting the lawn cutting rather than flowers planting! Like anything supply and demand sometimes people are busy and it's much easier to outsource and pay someone.

Mine only charges £20ph and he does lawn, edging and weeding of borders, sometimes plants a new shrub. He is retired and I pay him cash. No idea if he pays tax on it. I suspect not. He only has 3 customers and does us all on 1 day a week.

Also winter time living in UK work surely must dry up quite a bit. All those moaning need to becone a gardener themselves obviously living the dream 😀

I pay £30 an hour and he comes for 2 hours every 3 weeks but isa proper landscaper- does my lawn, trees, borders etc- keeps it beautiful- worth every penny

I don’t think they’re saying that. But employed people have a lot paid for them that the self employed have to fund themselves

Yes, and in your case it's a thinking-brain dog you need to budget for.

I hate employed people quibbling over paying self employed.

He's probably not earning £25 an hour for 8 hours a day. He might only get three jobs that day. Yes in the Spring/Summer he might earn more - in the Winter he might earn bugger all.

My average yearly earnings are £18k before I take off my expenses, insurances, subscriptions etc etc. I have very little pension and get no paid holiday or sickness. If clients cancel on me that's could be my food shop money gone - literally. I'm living off less than minimum wage with no chance of getting a top up from the government.

If you're wealthy enough to be needing/wanting a gardener, just pay him. And please pay him whilst you go on your abroad holidays even if he doesn't actually come to your house those two weeks. Trust me, they're the clients I go the extra mile for.

It costs us about £70 to have two large gardens cut, the side of the lane mown (about 100yds). My mum’s courtyard garden weeded, and some strimming around another courtyard area. Perhaps takes him 5 hours (grass is quite long usually when he comes, and the gardens are a bit field like and not easy to mow).

Running your own business is taking a risk and entrepreneurs have to charge a premium for that.Teachers,nurses etc have security of income.

maybe £25 for the first hour to take in to account travel time but I'd expect the second hour to be cheaper. Mind you...it's still expensive.

There is a calculator on this site which gives relatively accurate prices for each region: Lawn Mowing Price Checker. Obviously, it won't be 100% accurate, since everyone's lawns are different, but it should give you some good ideas about what the norm is.