[graingermouse]

recently ive had reason to think about how much people earn an hour, being self employed i dont actually get paid an hourly rate, but i do charge an hourly rate.
this has kind of come round due to some rediculous prices quoted by 'tradesman'.

my mother had a quote for a replacement fuse board, normal household job, no bonding required, how much would you guess? 300? 400 no 500
bloody rip off, cost wise, certainly no more than 150 so leaving 350 profit, and changing a fuse board only takes about 2 hrs plus an hour for testing and paperwork, so to me thats 700 a day. even at 12 hours a day he expects to earn over 50 an hour:shock:
Now, i would charge about 300 to 350 for the same job( coz im a sparky)
t cost,
so wednesday im travelling 130 miles to do my mums 'board, a

so this is where i ask, how much would you realisticaly expect to earn, obviously we are not wanting p60's but only ball park figures

 

[NoJive 55]

First off do you work for the Tax Office....and you forget to say how much you earn a hour ..:?:

Bob….

 

[Roadrunna]

Andy,

Is it really the fuseboard that brought this on or has Plum been moaning at your invoices again :lol: msl:

For me, I've been in at a range of levels from £46 p/h down to £5 p/h.


I'm trying to get back to the £46 one :lol:

 

[philhrc]

very little , most of my stuff is long term and on price , as such .....

i'm going to try and change that though this year :lol:

 

[nobody]

so if its a 3 hour job and you would charge between 300 and 350 youre just as much of a rip off as the other bloke.
can you really justify charging a £100 an hour.

 

[insanityvans]

Well, at the start of 2009 I was on the equivalent of £13.40 per hour for 40 hour week (Salaried and of copurse worked many, many more hours than that!) and fully expensed company car. Have been made redundant by the same company twice and have now been offered yet another job by them. State of the current market means I'm going to be on £11.50 ph, no car and a 100 mile round trip. So, when anyone talks of £100 per hour......or even £20 ph, I think, good luck to them.
But remember why our country doesn't manufacture any more, and why jobs disappear abroad!!

 

[Roadrunna]

so if its a 3 hour job and you would charge between 300 and 350 youre just as much of a rip off as the other bloke.
can you really justify charging a £100 an hour.

Not really when you take off the likes of material costs, travelling time, upkeep of the van, liability insurance, training and certification costs, tools etc. etc. etc.

I dare say the majority of that doesn't end up in the pocket as a 'wage'

 

[stretch]

everyone comes into this life with fuck all,some get better chances than others,we all go out of this world with fuck all,what you do in beetween is up to you as a individual,be carefull not to get caught with your pants down,and never tell anyone what you earn.............

 

[nobody]

Not really when you take off the likes of material costs, travelling time, upkeep of the van, liability insurance, training and certification costs, tools etc. etc. etc.

I dare say the majority of that doesn't end up in the pocket as a 'wage'

even with the cost of materials quoted it still works out at 70 notes an hour.
and id dare say most of that doesnt go on costs.

round here most trades are between 130 and 200 a day.thats for a day not some 3 hour stint ripping off old biddies.:wanker:

 

[bandqpaul]

Going Rate

I'd say £350 to £400 for changing the board would be average,and when you take in the costs of materials,the test equipment,insurance,your van,advertising,joining the NICEIC just to be able to sign the bloody thing off,and then your time he isn't ripping anyone off charging £350.

 

[wee paul]

my brother in law works as an air trffic controller. He is being transfered from Manchester to Prestwick airport, so has to go in for a day so as to have a look round and find out were everything is. His wage for the day will be £800. So if he does an 8 hour day (which i doubt) he is on £100 per hour. Alright for some.

 

[KerbycrewGary]

Just my tuppence worth....
(about 30 seconds at your rates)
Although you say its a half day job, chances are he's not going to do anything else that day....correct? Its hard to organise two such jobs in a day.
So A days money seems fair, he has to test an cert the whole installation and the 150 for materials is loooow. That might be what you can get them for, pricing it around, but chances are he's just going to his local wholesaler who's making his pound too.....
I think that 700 is high, but when you apply those criteria its not outragous is it?
Just think youselfs lucky its in Uk and not here in France. Here its 8 sockets to a breaker, ( no rings just radials) a seperate breaker and cable for each appliance, outside lighting, etc. Average board in a new build or renovation has between 35 and 40 MCB's ..........
And as to the initial question, If you are legal, and pay your own exe's
I'd say 40 an hour
Go and do your mum a favour, and get a nice slice of cake for me !!

 

[Ratty]

Is £500 taking the piss ?

No . If he can get that then good luck to the bloke , he's not forcing anyone to pay that as its up to the customer whether they accept the quote or not , and anyone who only gets one quote in these hard pressed times deserves to get a bum deal , there's plenty of cheaper guys out there . Maybe he's taken the option of doing fewer jobs for more money rather than working all day for peanuts .

Fair play to him , wish I could charge that :tup:

 

[Roadrunna]

even with the cost of materials quoted it still works out at 70 notes an hour.
and id dare say most of that doesnt go on costs.

round here most trades are between 130 and 200 a day.thats for a day not some 3 hour stint ripping off old biddies.:wanker:

How about you quit with the insults Wayne.

Did you read Andy's post ? Say 3 hrs (like you said) and a job cost of £300 (like you said).

So, take off the £150 cost (as Andy put in his post) and that leaves £150 (you still with me cos it looks like you missed a step earlier ?).

So, we've got £150 / 3 that's £50 an hour yep ??

Now take running costs, insurances, training costs to keep certifications current, banking costs, phone costs, advertising etc. into account as part of being self employed.

He's hardly gonna become a fucking millionaire is he.

Now lets say we add half an hours travelling each way onto that (because customers don't bring their wiring to him do they ). so now that 3hr job is a 4 hr job and the hourly rate works out to £37.50 before taking into account all the stuff above.

 

[great68]

I am a electrician that runs a small firm with a partner & a couple of guys. We work are in London postcodes (but not the city) We charge £350-400 + Vat for a board change. We only fit good quality gear and will do small main bonding jobs free. Our full NICEIC yearly registration + the notifications and other associated costs adds up to around £1500 a year. Our Public liability, Professional indemnity, Hired labour & failure for a system to work insurances cost us another £1600 a year. Last year we had to spend another £450 on British Standards publications because we have to. Also last year my partner and i had to sit the C&G 2381 & 2391 exams at a loss of a weeks wages and around £500 each, because the regs changed. I had to get a new tester last year because of the new RCD'S, that cost me £700. I bought a new van this week, i could have bought a second hand one but this one hopefully will last me 10 years + so works out cheaper than second hand. Our software for the certs runs at about £150 a year.
That's all i can think of right now, but expenses like this are monthly.

Regarding your mums house.
How much time, paperwork and fuel did the electrician who gave the estimate spend ?
How much time and fuel was taken up purchasing the parts ?
To carry out a board change a full Periodic test should be done first, to ascertain if any faults or non-compliance's are present. If one person is doing this in less than a couple of hours for a 3 bed house its not been done correctly. Then there's fitting the board, breaking the main seal (how do you do that legally ?) and retesting the whole job.
Once home or back at the office you then have to type up the certificates and complete the on line registration of this job ( oh and that's more money each year paying for our Part P registration)
Basically its more than a days work and £500 isn't enough.

 

[great68]

I suppose this whole thread should go in the rants !

Regarding costs, what pisses me off when People are buying a property they will not pay us £175 for a full periodic test which will take up over half a day including traveling and everything i mentioned above. They wont spend it because they don't HAVE to, even landlords wont unless the local authority makes them, but people will happily give £250-£1500 to a surveyor who spends 15min at a property in his nice new suit and BMW outside but actually tells them fuck all, just recommended plumbers, sparky's, damp proofing people etc should view the property.

Last year a young mother was electrocuted in a bath with her kiddies in the room due to dodgy electrics that her landlord had not bothered having checked for more than 20 years. You would not believe the life threatening poor quality installations i find. And then we are also struggling to work against the Eastern Europeans who mostly bodge up anything and scarper( but it was cheap!) or diyers that do there own electrics but get mates to illegally 'sign the job off'

 

[Roadrunna]

Looks like some people are missing the info.

Graingermouse IS a sparky. This IS what he does for a living. He's got the same costs as pretty much any other guy who's a self-employed electrician. He's certified.

He's not questioning the costs through misunderstanding of what's involved, just comparing what he'd charge for doing exactly the same job.

I put it in yellow just in case people were having trouble actually reading what was posted :lol:

 

[Roadrunna]

I suppose this whole thread should go in the rants !

Not at all. Just take the time to 'actually' read the first post :lol:

 

[bandqpaul]

£ per hour

I'm a sparky too(seems to be quite a few of us on here) and although people seem to think we rip people off we are only charging the going rate for the job, and as other people have said there are quite high costs associated with our trade,It amazes me that people find our costs high,they aren't when you consider the charges solicitors (£80 for a sodding letter) and estate agents charge when you sell a house and we have the risk of getting electrocuted all they get are paper cuts and numb arses from sitting behind desks.:grr:

 

[bandqpaul]

Up the sparkies!

Another point if it wasn't for us you'd be sitting in the dark and wouldn't have the power for your computers to find out how much we earn in the first place:incheek: