What is your hourly rate as a self employed electrician? (2023)

[HappyHippyDad]

I did a poll last year on exactly this.

Below I have pasted what I wrote in thread last time so there is a degree of similarity. We can then see if we have changed out prices much (again, bit of fun, not accurate)

pasted...

I thought I would start a poll to see 'roughly' what the average hourly rate is for self employed electricians?

To keep it as simple as possible, forget about any 'first hour' rate you may or may not charge and just go for your rate after that.

I realise this isn't going to cover lots and lots of scenarios (quotes, domestic, commercial, location etc etc), but it's just for a bit of amusement and perhaps along the way we'll gain a very rough idea of an electrician's hourly rate.

It will be anonymous so please do answer honestly

 

[oscar21]

<= This!

Should be one any sort of trade really, but what of ten p***** me off are folks objecting to £XX fee when they are on a decent salary and their employer is having to find that plus 100% overheads income to make it work.

Of course young people should be taught business sense, kids at school should be taught about money, finance and the like, they should be hit in the head with a board duster until they understand about compound interest rates.

But they won't, because if they did they wouldn't get into all sorts of high interest debts when they are older using up their working life making obscenely rich people even richer.

 

[nicebutdim]

Of course young people should be taught business sense, kids at school should be taught about money, finance and the like, they should be hit in the head with a board duster until they understand about compound interest rates.

But they won't, because if they did they wouldn't get into all sorts of high interest debts when they are older using up their working life making obscenely rich people even richer.

They could also avail of all manner of free resources and provide themselves with a beneficial education.

But they won't because stuffing one's face with fast food, while watching mindless nonsense is much easier, especially when it's accepted that all of life's woes are the fault of someone else.

The real education needed in the western world is one of personal responsibility.

 

[LukeD]

They could also avail of all manner of free resources and provide themselves with a beneficial education.

But they won't because stuffing one's face with fast food, while watching mindless nonsense is much easier, especially when it's accepted that all of life's woes are the fault of someone else.

The real education needed in the western world is one of personal responsibility.

Correct ..... there seems to be a great lack of it. I am 60 and have zero debt of any description .Some of my friends are so in debt its unreal .They own a house .I dont . They can lose it all far quicker than I can .they have this believe that debt is not a issue

 

[Risteard]

I have been banging on for years that ALL apprenticeships should tag on even a basic business course on the end of it for those who may want to go solo.

I certainly take your point, although if I'm honest when I was finishing my Apprenticeship I never had the intention of ever going out on my own. It was probably largely forced false Self-Employment which made the decision for me, where if you're being forced to register as Self-Employed to essentially be an employee without your statutory rights then I may as well become properly self-employed.

 

[nicebutdim]

Correct ..... there seems to be a great lack of it. I am 60 and have zero debt of any description .Some of my friends are so in debt its unreal .They own a house .I dont . They can lose it all far quicker than I can .they have this believe that debt is not a issue

Even best laid plans are prone to failure and people fall into debt for all manner of reasons, but I find it difficult to sympathise with people who complain about debt while failing to recognise their own extravagence.

I've been in debt once and learned some hard lessons about business, along with life in general. I don't plan on repeating that experience, but it's impossible to know what the future holds. The best we can do is plan ahead with a good measure of responsibility.

 

[baldelectrician]

I certainly take your point, although if I'm honest when I was finishing my Apprenticeship I never had the intention of ever going out on my own. It was probably largely forced false Self-Employment which made the decision for me, where if you're being forced to register as Self-Employed to essentially be an employee without your statutory rights then I may as well become properly self-employed.

Exact thing happened to me in 2003

The guy I worked for told all of us we had to go self employed.

Within 6 weeks I realised I could make double what he was paying by going on my own.

The first week his son called me on the way back from Port Patrick (just south of Stranraer) and asked me to go to Port Glasgow as I was about to reach my house on the A77. Told him NO

After his stunned silence I pointed out that if I said that 2 months ago he could have disciplined me but as I am now self employed I could pick and choose my own jobs

 

[richy3333]

Do any of you charge your hour rate from the moment you step into your vehicle? or do you have a traveling time rate?

I charge mileage on top of my hourly/day rate. I have to being in the Highlands. Local for me could easily be a round trip of 300+ miles! I rarely charge an hourly rate due to the distances involved.

Personally I think most electricians charge way too little when you look at other professions and the way the cost of living has increased so much. Over the last couple of years I have nearly doubled my rate and it has had zero effect on my workload.

 

[LukeD]

Exact thing happened to me in 2003

The guy I worked for told all of us we had to go self employed.

Within 6 weeks I realised I could make double what he was paying by going on my own.

The first week his son called me on the way back from Port Patrick (just south of Stranraer) and asked me to go to Port Glasgow as I was about to reach my house on the A77. Told him NO

After his stunned silence I pointed out that if I said that 2 months ago he could have disciplined me but as I am now self employed I could pick and choose my own jobs

I find this whole practise of people been forced to work for a company on a self employed basis a Joke and immoral .

 

[Dustydazzler]

I find this whole practise of people been forced to work for a company on a self employed basis a Joke and immoral .

Wasn't uncommon back in the day for firms to askpeople if they wanted to come off the cards and become subbies back to the firm.Happened to me and loads of blokes I knew back then.
In fact I remember one company I did work for being audited for having so many 'self employed; people working for them on a regualr basis.

 

[Mike Johnson]

The companies themselves are avoiding paying Income Tax and National Health contribution, holiday pay etc if found out the will end up in court, periodic checks are made of companies by HMRC.

A company I was consulting for had such a check together with other consultants, I was interviewed and only when I showed them the results of a VAT inspection and a list of my other clients was the investigation dropped.

 

[oscar21]

Instead of an hourly rate some people charge by point, maybe £60 a point, if you do that and say you wire 6 downlights in a room with a 1 gang switch, would you charge for 6 or 7 points, similarly if you wired a spur controlling a single socket is that 1 or 2 points. Maybe even go as far as charging a switch out at £60 per switch so a 4 gang switch would cost £240 to install as opposed to £60 (or nothing if you include it with the installed lighting). What's the consensus on that one.

 

[oscar21]

The companies themselves are avoiding paying Income Tax and National Health contribution, holiday pay etc if found out the will end up in court, periodic checks are made of companies by HMRC.

A company I was consulting for had such a check together with other consultants, I was interviewed and only when I showed them the results of a VAT inspection and a list of my other clients was the investigation dropped.

This wasn't a problem back in the day though, when tories were tories they encouraged people to branch out and become successful, they wanted people to be self employed and get on in life. If that meant losing out on a bit of NI or tax then it didn't matter, people wanted to be their own boss and it suited everyone just fine.

Nowadays we have governments that are obsessed with blowing money left right and centre on vanity projects and they need the serfs to work themselves into an early grave to pay for it and one of those ways is to hound people into becoming an insignificant employee who has no other option other than to pay his dues.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Very strange view point, I don't know how old you are, but I am 75 and retired ten years ago, so my previous post was probably "back in the day"

 

[ipf]

Instead of an hourly rate some people charge by point, maybe £60 a point, if you do that and say you wire 6 downlights in a room with a 1 gang switch, would you charge for 6 or 7 points, similarly if you wired a spur controlling a single socket is that 1 or 2 points. Maybe even go as far as charging a switch out at £60 per switch so a 4 gang switch would cost £240 to install as opposed to £60 (or nothing if you include it with the installed lighting). What's the consensus on that one.

Per point is the general way of quoting for rewire, say. However, can't see how you would get away with that method for downlights in a room.
eg. Lighting, Price per 1way plus any extra lights at 'so much per unit'
Same for price per 2way.
Same for intermediate.
Power circuits just 'so much' per point
No way should you be charging one switch in room with 6 downlights as 6 'full' points.........unless you can get away with it, maybe.

 

[Risteard]

Per point is the general way of quoting for rewire, say. However, can't see how you would get away with that method for downlights in a room.
eg. Lighting, Price per 1way plus any extra lights at 'so much per unit'
Same for price per 2way.
Same for intermediate.
Power circuits just 'so much' per point
No way should you be charging one switch in room with 6 downlights as 6 'full' points.........unless you can get away with it, maybe.

If charging by points then each downlight/switch is a point. If people don't want to pay for 40 lighting points per room then maybe downlights aren't the answer!