day rates/per hour ???

[glasgospark]

what do you guys reckon is average and what do you charge

obviously location will differ pricing

 

[glasgospark]

Im cards in and get £110 a day for a normal 7.5 hour day, I'm up north so again London or major cities will be more I imagine.

cards in ?

 

[Landril]

That's why if ur not cards in you get 40-60k overheads come out of that too I'm guessing, minus all ur tax NI etc,

- - - Updated - - -

Cards in =
Work for someone not self employed.

 

[i=p/u]

Well for me sometimes get 5 hours a week , 20 the next , 15 the next, but I'm new to area and have met some good contacts already, but I do work for another guy too for £8 but no hassle , just turn up. But 160 a day is what I want considering only at this nearly 4 years. Lot to learn aswell loads more courses to do. Fire alarms , emergency lighting.

 

[shanky887614]

£30 per day???

this is what the guy offerd me before i started.

he is goig to raise it soon, got my tech certs already but that doesnt alter the fact ive only just started the aprentaship

 

[glasgospark]

never again will i be (cards in)

iv been trading since june last year all going great contracts with T***O supermarket
on going work steady just been given 2 newbuilds last tuesday also 3story tenement house rewire plus extension

i dare say if i had not secured everything i have upto now i would maybe feel different about it

 

[SYKRAPS]

What pecentage of jobs do you win that you are pricing for?

 

[glasgospark]

What pecentage of jobs do you win that you are pricing for?

on rated people i usually get 90%
my builder 50%
private 100%
got a good reputation and find more and more people coming to me and not even asking how much,
i havent even started advertising bar having the website ,
speaking of advertising any tips or ideas ?

 

[accordfire]

i ment i am a ltd company what do you guys charge and whats average

dont know where apprentice wages came from

As a limited company our rates vary depending on the work and the discipline.

For us, what we do gets split more than say fault and installs - we have consulting too.

What we always do, however, is base hourly rates on overheads plus. There are formulas for working it out.

Essentially, there's two elements to consider - the REAL cost of your time, PLUS your overheads, Plus a profit element.

Some overheads are fixed, others variable - those can be estimated initially and then more accurately as data is collected.

Examples of fixed overheads would be rent, rates, phone, vehicle rental/purchase, while examples of variable overheads would be things like Bank charges, fuel, advertising,

Let's take a broad example here:

Assume Joe Spark Ltd has decided he's in business and is trying to work out his rate:

He finds a small unit, kits it out with a phone, and so forth, gets a nice little van, and starts advertising. Phone starts ringing and he's asked to quote for work.

Suddenly he's thinking "How much should I charge" - I know all the other guys in my patch are somewhere between £30 and £50 an hour. The easy temptation is to simply pitch himself in the middle, and hope he's got enough to convince them he's worth it. It's the quickest way to get into trouble though. He has no idea if £40 an hour is enough to cover all his costs and make a profit (on which he would hope to be taxed).

So, he decides to be a little smarter, and sits down with his shiny new laptop, and his shiny new copy of Excel.

He doesn't start by assuming he'll have any sales, but needs to list everything he KNOWS he's going to pay for over the next twelve months. These are his fixed overheads. He lists all of those, and puts monthly costs next to them. He then totals them - let's say that comes to £20,000 for the year.

He then lists all his overheads that are not fixed - variable overheads, which he knows he's guessing to some extent, but can guess reasonably well. He knows, for example, that fuel is roughly £6 a gallon, and his van is doing 40 miles for each £6. He knows to add some for repairs, maintenance etc. He can gauge a rough cost from years of servicing the wife...s car.

So, he's worked out a fair idea of what he "might" be spending on variable overheads, and arrive at say another £15,000 for those bits.

He now knows his overheads are around £35,000 a year.

He then figures he's worth £25,000 in wages for his first year. Some people work this as a gross cost (e.g. come straight off the top line like stock, others, not) - for simplicity, not. We now know that Joe has expected outgoings (or overheads) of £60,000 for the year.

In the very simplest terms, he knows he has to earn £60,000 plus the cost of his materials to break even. He needs more to make profit.

Okay, so now he has most of the figures he needs to be able to work out the minimum he can charge per hour, assuming a few other factors.

Typically, in a first year, a good tradesman will work around 150 chargeable days. When he's really busy, that will be nearer the 220 most employees work. Initially, though, there's a 70 day shortfall - 14 working weeks! Realistically, then he's got to earn all that money in 38 weeks, or around 150 days, or 1200 hours.

First sum then - £60,000/1200 = £50 per hour. That looks high, and he hasn't even added anything for profit yet. So he now has some choices to make.

Either to reduce his overheads, pay himself less (most likely), or work more - try for maybe nearer the 220 days by working a Saturday too, for example - not forgetting he needs unpaid time to do books, quotes and so on. So he figures, ultimately, that he might not break even in year one (many do not, and this is important to be realistic about for banks). So he assumes that he may make a loss in year one, and decides that like most other companies, he has 220 days, or 1760 hours available as a maximum. This gives him a new sum of

£60,000/1760 = £34.10 - from which he can see his overheads are not unrealistic.

He then figures that 20% is a fair element for profit - so takes his £34.10 and adds 20% = £40.92 - he rounds this to £42 for ease of calculation and to cover some of his potential year one loss.

He now knows two things - £42 is a fair hourly rate for his business, as it covers costs and adds a little for profit or contingency. He also knows that in a worst case, he can drop to £35 and still cover costs.

From this, he knows that if he can secure 150 days of work, he will earn £50,400 - and if he can push it to 200, £67,200 - he actually needs 1429 hours or 179 days to break even at £60,000.

He now also knows where his mark up on materials might need to be - to cover shortfall at the lower end of workload, or indeed, as pure profit at the higher end. Assuming he gets only 150 hours, then he's looking to mark up a year's worth of materials by £10,000 or so. This side of things is more difficult, but typical mark up would be in the order of 30% - that is, for every hundred pounds of materials, he's charging £130. He would be able to tell from close monitoring of his first few jobs whether to mark up further (and hope to remain competitive) or whether to mark down a little, and fall back on trying to get more work.

 

[SYKRAPS]

on rated people i usually get 90%
my builder 50%
private 100%
got a good reputation and find more and more people coming to me and not even asking how much,
i havent even started advertising bar having the website ,
speaking of advertising any tips or ideas ?

If you were to increase your prices you would win less work but make more profit on what you win and thus make the same money for less actual work.

If you are winning between 90% and 100% I would say you need to increase your rates a bit.

- - - Updated - - -

As a limited company our rates vary depending on the work and the discipline.

For us, what we do gets split more than say fault and installs - we have consulting too.

What we always do, however, is base hourly rates on overheads plus. There are formulas for working it out.

Essentially, there's two elements to consider - the REAL cost of your time, PLUS your overheads, Plus a profit element.

Some overheads are fixed, others variable - those can be estimated initially and then more accurately as data is collected.

Examples of fixed overheads would be rent, rates, phone, vehicle rental/purchase, while examples of variable overheads would be things like Bank charges, fuel, advertising,

Let's take a broad example here:

Assume Joe Spark Ltd has decided he's in business and is trying to work out his rate:

He finds a small unit, kits it out with a phone, and so forth, gets a nice little van, and starts advertising. Phone starts ringing and he's asked to quote for work.

Suddenly he's thinking "How much should I charge" - I know all the other guys in my patch are somewhere between £30 and £50 an hour. The easy temptation is to simply pitch himself in the middle, and hope he's got enough to convince them he's worth it. It's the quickest way to get into trouble though. He has no idea if £40 an hour is enough to cover all his costs and make a profit (on which he would hope to be taxed).

So, he decides to be a little smarter, and sits down with his shiny new laptop, and his shiny new copy of Excel.

He doesn't start by assuming he'll have any sales, but needs to list everything he KNOWS he's going to pay for over the next twelve months. These are his fixed overheads. He lists all of those, and puts monthly costs next to them. He then totals them - let's say that comes to £20,000 for the year.

He then lists all his overheads that are not fixed - variable overheads, which he knows he's guessing to some extent, but can guess reasonably well. He knows, for example, that fuel is roughly £6 a gallon, and his van is doing 40 miles for each £6. He knows to add some for repairs, maintenance etc. He can gauge a rough cost from years of servicing the wife...s car.

So, he's worked out a fair idea of what he "might" be spending on variable overheads, and arrive at say another £15,000 for those bits.

He now knows his overheads are around £35,000 a year.

He then figures he's worth £25,000 in wages for his first year. Some people work this as a gross cost (e.g. come straight off the top line like stock, others, not) - for simplicity, not. We now know that Joe has expected outgoings (or overheads) of £60,000 for the year.

In the very simplest terms, he knows he has to earn £60,000 plus the cost of his materials to break even. He needs more to make profit.

Okay, so now he has most of the figures he needs to be able to work out the minimum he can charge per hour, assuming a few other factors.

Typically, in a first year, a good tradesman will work around 150 chargeable days. When he's really busy, that will be nearer the 220 most employees work. Initially, though, there's a 70 day shortfall - 14 working weeks! Realistically, then he's got to earn all that money in 38 weeks, or around 150 days, or 1200 hours.

First sum then - £60,000/1200 = £50 per hour. That looks high, and he hasn't even added anything for profit yet. So he now has some choices to make.

Either to reduce his overheads, pay himself less (most likely), or work more - try for maybe nearer the 220 days by working a Saturday too, for example - not forgetting he needs unpaid time to do books, quotes and so on. So he figures, ultimately, that he might not break even in year one (many do not, and this is important to be realistic about for banks). So he assumes that he may make a loss in year one, and decides that like most other companies, he has 220 days, or 1760 hours available as a maximum. This gives him a new sum of

£60,000/1760 = £34.10 - from which he can see his overheads are not unrealistic.

He then figures that 20% is a fair element for profit - so takes his £34.10 and adds 20% = £40.92 - he rounds this to £42 for ease of calculation and to cover some of his potential year one loss.

He now knows two things - £42 is a fair hourly rate for his business, as it covers costs and adds a little for profit or contingency. He also knows that in a worst case, he can drop to £35 and still cover costs.

From this, he knows that if he can secure 150 days of work, he will earn £50,400 - and if he can push it to 200, £67,200 - he actually needs 1429 hours or 179 days to break even at £60,000.

He now also knows where his mark up on materials might need to be - to cover shortfall at the lower end of workload, or indeed, as pure profit at the higher end. Assuming he gets only 150 hours, then he's looking to mark up a year's worth of materials by £10,000 or so. This side of things is more difficult, but typical mark up would be in the order of 30% - that is, for every hundred pounds of materials, he's charging £130. He would be able to tell from close monitoring of his first few jobs whether to mark up further (and hope to remain competitive) or whether to mark down a little, and fall back on trying to get more work.

Wow that must have taken some time to type lol.............good though

 

[glasgospark]

been on job for 5 weeks from november till 14 dec been charging 300 a day for 2 sparks ,customer not happy with main builder project management

been off the job since dec 14th and now asking me to do it for 125 a day quoting (every other guy on the job is doing it cheaper) bearing in mind the guys hes talking about are sitting in house and are joiners and plasterers , now i have bent over backwards for this guy already the day rate being cheap materials cost price and have supplied halers at £10-£15 less than the quoted price obviously my discount.
i have said i wont do it for this and he replies ill try get someone else then bearing in mind jobs half done .

what yous think

 

[monkeyelectric]

been on job for 5 weeks from november till 14 dec been charging 300 a day for 2 sparks ,customer not happy with main builder project management

been off the job since dec 14th and now asking me to do it for 125 a day quoting (every other guy on the job is doing it cheaper) bearing in mind the guys hes talking about are sitting in house and are joiners and plasterers , now i have bent over backwards for this guy already the day rate being cheap materials cost price and have supplied halers at £10-£15 less than the quoted price obviously my discount.
i have said i wont do it for this and he replies ill try get someone else then bearing in mind jobs half done .

what yous think

Just do shorter days for the £125 or stick to your guns and tell him you'll not do it for less

 

[accordfire]

on rated people i usually get 90%
my builder 50%
private 100%
got a good reputation and find more and more people coming to me and not even asking how much,
i havent even started advertising bar having the website ,
speaking of advertising any tips or ideas ?

Two tips

1) Ditch your builder. He's costing you money.

2) Promote Website as far as possible and get it optimised for your area(s).

- - - Updated - - -

If you were to increase your prices you would win less work but make more profit on what you win and thus make the same money for less actual work.

If you are winning between 90% and 100% I would say you need to increase your rates a bit.

- - - Updated - - -



Wow that must have taken some time to type lol.............good though

Lol - 5 minutes give or take What can I say, I type fast

 

[accordfire]

been on job for 5 weeks from november till 14 dec been charging 300 a day for 2 sparks ,customer not happy with main builder project management

been off the job since dec 14th and now asking me to do it for 125 a day quoting (every other guy on the job is doing it cheaper) bearing in mind the guys hes talking about are sitting in house and are joiners and plasterers , now i have bent over backwards for this guy already the day rate being cheap materials cost price and have supplied halers at £10-£15 less than the quoted price obviously my discount.
i have said i wont do it for this and he replies ill try get someone else then bearing in mind jobs half done .

what yous think

Did you have your price to him in writing? If so, he's bound by contract.

If you want the work, tell him the best you can do is reduce your rate to say £250 a day or so.

 

[MDJ]

what do you guys reckon is average and what do you charge

obviously location will differ pricing

It depends on what your work and customers are, you will find the rate will become evident if pricing aginst others when you start to win lots of work or lose it, sometimes you can get the money other times you won't get a sniff at a job for being too expensive, 160 a day for domestic and 200 a day for commercial is average, but it can fluctuate either way, nothing else to add really, you need to know your customers and who your pricing against, the rates will then be the rate whether you like them or not and then you need to decide whether it's right for you, I turn down a lot of work, but at times would work for less that the work I usually turn down, know your market, know your customers.

 

[glasgospark]

Did you have your price to him in writing? If so, he's bound by contract.

If you want the work, tell him the best you can do is reduce your rate to say £250 a day or so.

all verbal only ,£250 for 2 sparks per day im killing myself at£300 a day