Prices for Herts, Beds and Bucks

[Sparky's Auntie]

Hi there, had some great advice over the last few months so I'm back.

Everything is going up and so our prices have to, too. They've been the same for two years so it's time (aside from inflation).
We're based in Herts but do work in Beds, Bucks and North London.

Short of phoning other electricians up to ask them what they charge (had a go but feel too bad), how can I get a realistic idea of charges in this area? If I give you an idea of our pricing could you give me some advice please?

(excl VAT)
EICRs start from £120
double socket £20
Smoke Alarm £40
Day rate £250
Call out £60

I've looked on line and based on Checkatrade we're way under average.

Thank you

 

[UNG]

Your pricing is way off even for 2 years ago
What is your hourly rate

 

[Sparky's Auntie]

Your pricing is way off even for 2 years ago
What is your hourly rate

God that's heartbreaking! £37

 

[Dustydazzler]

£20 for a double socket

When I worked for a firm smashing out new builds for a big housing developer they charged £50 per socket and that was around 1999

At £20 you are effectively working for free

 

[Dustydazzler]

I am £95 per hour for small jobs / call outs etc ( that does include any small stuff I use like Wagos and small bits of cable etc)

 

[Sparky's Auntie]

£20 for a double socket

When I worked for a firm smashing out new builds for a big housing developer they charged £50 per socket and that was around 1999

At £20 you are effectively working for free

You're right. I don't think pricing is our strong point.

 

[Sparky's Auntie]

I am £95 per hour for small jobs / call outs etc ( that does include any small stuff I use like Wagos and small bits of cable etc)

Are you London based? Our call-outs only £60 and then £37 ph after.

 

[Dustydazzler]

Are you London based? Our call-outs only £60 and then £37 ph after.

Surrey

 

[Dustydazzler]

You're right. I don't think pricing is our strong point.

A roll of 2.5 is about £90 now at £20 per socket by the time you fit a box and cheapo socket you are making a loss

 

[UNG]

God that's heartbreaking! £37

Apologies if you find it heartbreaking but if you look at your numbers in the OP the question has to be asked what are you paying the guy's on the tools as the prices just don't add up

You quote an EICR from £120 so what is that based on how many EICR's do you do at that £120 rate and make money

About 25 years ago the company I had at the time was contacted once a month to feedback prices for set jobs which were used for the RPI and / or CPI rates and back then we were quoting about £45 for an extra socket install

What do you class as a call out is this in normal hours or a 24/7 callout

I would suggest you need to do a review of your costs and overheads, how much does running the office cost, then their are vans, test and access equipment and other supplied tools to also cost in

I don't know what profile of work your company does but if you do jobs where you have quoted for work periodically (3 - 4 months) do a comparison of the actual costs v the quote for a few jobs. As an example one of the companies I had about 20 years ago did a lot of work around the UK and out into Europe, the more local jobs of more than days work up to 100 miles from base were the ones that got reviewed the most as they were not considered to be stay out jobs so involved daily round trip travel of up to 200 miles with these jobs the review we did also looked at the optimum way to work the job, over a few years we reduced the distance and / or the travel time to get to the job as it became more optimal to actual stay out we closed the business in 2004 and at that time jobs over 90 miles or 90 mins travelling were deemed to be stay out jobs, the distant jobs were more straight forward to analyse and generally the review was more for confirming our anaylsis of how many man days the work would take and what average hotel costs were for different parts of the country