Any professional gardeners here or anyone who employs one?

[BlueSkyBeing]

I'd like to take up gardening for a full time career, but worked out I need to earn around £30 an hour to fully cover all my expense, plus holiday cover, pension, tax, weather downtime etc comfortably.

Going on forums and from what I see many people are prepared to pay rates at £15 to £20 seem to be perhaps more a norm (I may be wrong). Wondering if any professional gardeners would care to share their rate and whether/how they manage.

I'm single so have to cover all my costs and in the South East.

Bill yourself out at a minimum of £50 per hour, but never charge by the hour, fixed price only. Customer will happily pay £25 for their lawn to be cut, knowing it would take them 40mins or more, taking you with your large pro mower 25mins.

Self employed gardener of 8yrs here, midlands. £40k profit (before tax), working 3-4 days a week is achievable. With most of January & feb off, for family time, holidays, hobbies and recuperation

Customer will happily pay £25 for their lawn to be cut, knowing it would take them 40mins or more, taking you with your large pro mower 25mins.
What contempt for your customers you seem to show!

For £25 I'd expect my lawn to be edged using nail scissors.

Garden owner here - 6 acres, well known and open to the public. I'd know a rip-off merchant when I saw one.

I’m a gardener. I charge £30 an hour in SW.

I’m busy enough that I’m considering raising my prices for new clients.

Not at all. They are paying for your expertise/superior machinery, and it shouldn't take a professional as long as someone doing their own grass with a tiny Flymo. DH pays over £1400 for his lawnmowers, plus all the other machinery he has. That needs paying for as well as DH's time and done profit.

My partner is a gardener and doesn't charge an hourly rate but gives a price for the job. This is because some jobs use more equipment or are more physically hard than others, even though they take the same amount of time. Earns between 200 and 300 a day when doing it full time. The problem is no work from around November to March. The cheapest job he does is monthly maintenance for £50, which takes a couple of hours.

The problem is no work from around November to March

I don’t find this to be the case at all. The jobs are different, but I’m busy year round.

No disagreement with the prices. It was the attitude. Charge for the job, because customer will pay for what they think is an hours job but you know it’s only 25mins.

Customer will happily pay £25 for their lawn to be cut, knowing it would take them 40mins or more, taking you with your large pro mower 25mins.

PP clearly says here 'knowing it will take them 40 minutes'. Customers very often think they are paying a gardener for the length of time it would take them to do the work, when what they are paying for is for the job to be done to a good standard.

I have a friend whose daughter is a gardener. She has struggled this year because there's been so much rain. Something to think about....

Do they? This customer doesn’t.