On call pay rates?

[fylthespider]

Hi all. Given up being self employed after 25 years and got a post as maintainence spark on a mixed office, light industrial and accommodation site.
Rate of pay is in line with jib so happy enough there, but been asked to go on call. Week at a time. Covering mon to Friday 5pm to 8 am, 24 hrs sat n Sunday.
£70 per week on call plus 1.5 time door to door .
This seems a bit low to me, any one else have experience of this kind of thing?

All thoughts welcome.
East midlands area.
Cheers fly.

 

[Richard Burns]

I am now a bit out of touch but it does seem slightly low, but not too far off. Is this every other week or is this less frequently as this affects your own life time.
Time and a half for any call out with no minimum hours not really on, but the door to door is OK.
Are there provisions for time off in lieu, etc. if the call out hours are long otherwise you may be coming up against number of hours worked and minimum time between working hours.

 

[fylthespider]

Yeah thought bit low. It's one week in four. Only making safe/ alarm resets so not taxing. Time in lieu to be discussed it's the basic 70 quid a week seems on the low side. Still, could do with a week off the beer every now N again.

 

[7029 dave]

I do standby, one in four days. the retainer is a lot better than that, weekend a bit Moore,plus 3hrs door to door at1.5, double time after midnight and Sundays.

 

[jaydub]

Kind of unrelated to this but similar, what would people charge for a 2 hour fault finding call out on bank holiday Monday? I was deciding between £60-80, as it wasn't a bad little job. Or is that still too much/too little?

£40 for first hour and £20/30 for the second hour?

How do others do it? No materials were used.

Sorry, just didn't want to start another thread!

 

[123]

Far too low. £40 for the first hour of a call out on a bank holiday? I'd rather stay in bed.

Figures will very much depend on your area but imho you need a call out charge for turning up then hourly rate (and as out of normal working hours it should be at least 1.4 times your normal rate).

 

[darksideby182]

Three years ago i was getting £80 per week and 1/5 times per hour and that was considered poor by all the guys that worked for the company (big maintenance company). I would be expecting more than what they are offering.

 

[jaydub]

So would you say something like £50-60 call out charge and then £30ish an hour after that? Thanks

 

[Hellmooth]

That would be my normal call out charges, well £40-£50 covering call out and first hour, then £30-£35 an hour minimum, I think £25 an hour is far too low for a decent self employed spark, Electrical Trainee's will be charging the same.

 

[jaydub]

I'm just a one man band recently started up so don't want to charge too much to put people off but don't want to charge too little and stitch up myself/the industry/other sparks. After all we're all just trying to make a living 'eh!

 

[jaydub]

Thanks for all your advice

 

[HandySparks]

My normal call-out rate is twice my standard hourly rate. Travel time charged at same rate as time on site, with a minimum of one hour on site. Bank holidays I may charge more.

Having said that, I did a quick fault-finding job for a new customer in our road on the afternoon of new year's eve. Took 45 minutes total. I asked for £50 and received £60 from a happy customer. I decided that going easy on the rate in this instance would be beneficial in the long run. Had it been a good distance away, I would have charged my full published rate. Don't under-sell yourself.

 

[rolyberkin]

Hi all. Given up being self employed after 25 years and got a post as maintainence spark on a mixed office, light industrial and accommodation site.
Rate of pay is in line with jib so happy enough there, but been asked to go on call. Week at a time. Covering mon to Friday 5pm to 8 am, 24 hrs sat n Sunday.
£70 per week on call plus 1.5 time door to door .
This seems a bit low to me, any one else have experience of this kind of thing?

All thoughts welcome.
East midlands area.
Cheers fly.

My view is that during the week it is a nominal fee and you may be able to earn some extra money, however £10 a day is a ---- take. I used to get £15 a day as an on call civil servant. My view is you cannot be 'on call' unless you are working during the day, can you not negotiate a working day Sat & Sun when you are on call and have two days off in the week, or would this not suit?

 

[Dobes_88]

I worked for a well established local (Surrey) fire & security security firm around 3 years ago, we were on call every 1 in 8 weeks a week at a time.

We were given £110 flat rate for being on call and £35 (+ travel time door to door) to every call out we attended site to, this was deemed as quite low then as it didn't take into account the amount of phone calls received during the night for reset codes etc which didn't necessarily warrant a site visit therefore unpaid, still expected to be up first thing in the morning.

 

[akwoody2]

In my employment we have a rota that works out that everyone is on call at least two nights a week, we get £25 a night for being on call and if we get called out we get £50 plus 4hrs at double time minimum