A general builder runs £150 to £400 a day and an electrician £220 to £500 a day, labour only, before VAT and materials. Those bands are wide on purpose. The published guides contradict each other, and in places themselves, so this page shows the full spread per trade rather than one tidy number that would not survive a second source.
£150 to £400 a day
Structure, brickwork, openings and renovation work, plus sequencing the other trades on site.
£25 to £60 an hour
£220 to £500 a day
First and second fix wiring, consumer units, circuits, testing and the certificate at the end.
£35 to £70 an hour
£200 to £480 a day
Pipework, bathrooms and kitchens, heating, and anything that has to be Gas Safe registered.
£30 to £60 an hour
£170 to £350 a day
Wall and floor tiling, levelling and preparation, waterproofing behind the tiles in wet areas.
£20 to £40 an hour
£160 to £350 a day
Skimming, boarding, rendering and making good after the trades that came before.
£25 to £37.50 an hour
£127 to £350 a day
Preparation, filling, sanding, painting and wallpapering, usually the last trade in the room.
£16 to £40 an hour
All figures are labour only, before materials. Whether VAT comes on top depends on whether the trade is VAT registered, so ask. The band is the widest span across the guides listed, not an average, and not a price anyone is committed to. Sources per trade are listed on each page, and in full at the foot of this one.
A day rate looks like the kind of thing that should have one answer. It does not, and the reason is worth knowing before you use any figure to judge a quote.
That is not a reason to ignore these figures. It is a reason to use them as a sense check on a quote rather than as a target price, and to ask any trade how many days they are pricing for.
MyBuilder writes that London and the South East consistently sit 20 to 40% above the national average, and illustrates it with a builder charging £200 a day in Manchester quoting £280 to £300 for the same work in London.
The regional table further down that same page puts London at £233 and Manchester at £196, a gap of about 19%. The London average in its own table is also well below the £280 to £300 its own example quotes. Checkatrade gives no percentage and no London figure at all, only that prices there are higher.
Average builder day rates by city, as published. Source: MyBuilder, How much is a builder day rate in 2026 (No date on the page, 2026 in the title), checked 13 August 2026.
Where one of the three guides here does print a London figure beside its own national one, the gap runs from nothing at all at the top of the electrician band to roughly half at the bottom of the tiler band. That is too unstable to publish as a single percentage, so this site does not. Price your own postcode with quotes instead.
Sources for this section: MyBuilder, How much is a builder day rate in 2026 (No date on the page, 2026 in the title), checked 13 August 2026; Checkatrade, How much do tradespeople cost in the UK in 2026 (Last updated April 2026), checked 13 August 2026; Superscript, What are tradesperson pay rates for 2026 (Published 16 February 2026), checked 13 August 2026.
How costs move across the country by project type is set out in renovation costs by region.
On a day rate, the risk that the job runs long sits with you. On a fixed price it sits with the trade, which is why they only commit to one when the scope is clear enough to price with confidence.
A day rate tends to work when:
A fixed price tends to work when:
Under a day of work, expect an hourly rate. Several full days, expect a day rate. Anything in between, settle it in writing before the first morning.
Source: MyBuilder, How much is a builder day rate in 2026 (No date on the page, 2026 in the title), checked 13 August 2026.
A day rate is labour and nothing else, and this is where most of the surprise in a final invoice comes from. Each line below carries the source that publishes it, because they do not all come from the same one.
Materials
Charged separately, either at trade cost or with a markup of 10 to 20%. On a straightforward extension the materials bill can match or beat the labour.
Source: MyBuilder, How much is a builder day rate in 2026 (No date on the page, 2026 in the title), checked 13 August 2026.
VAT
A trade registered for VAT, which applies above £90,000 of turnover, adds 20% to labour and materials. Ask whether a quote is inclusive or exclusive before you compare it with another one.
Source: MyBuilder, How much is a builder day rate in 2026 (No date on the page, 2026 in the title), checked 13 August 2026.
Waste
Skip hire runs £125 to £320 for a week depending on size and location, and the benchmark 8-yard builders skip averages £331. Most renovation work fills at least one, and a skip standing on the road needs a council permit on top.
Source: Skip figures from the 2026 UK skip price index used across this site (Checkatrade, MyJobQuote and Rent-a-Skip), the same source as the skip hire cost page.
Scaffolding
External work above ground floor level usually needs it. It is hired and quoted separately from the trade doing the work, so ask whose line it is in the quote before anyone starts.
Other trades
Electrics, plumbing and gas are priced on top of a general builder rate, each on their own day rate.
Minimum charges
Many trades apply a minimum charge on a short visit, and an electrician call-out fee often covers travel, the first hour and basic fault finding. A one hour job rarely costs one hour.
Source: Checkatrade, Electrician hourly rates in the UK in 2026 (Last updated May 2026), checked 13 August 2026.
Contingency
Published guidance puts a contingency of 10 to 20% on top of the build budget for renovation work, at the top of that range where the job opens up existing structure, because damp, rot and out of spec wiring turn up once things are apart.
Source: Federation of Master Builders budgeting guidance (10 to 20% contingency; the top end for structural work and older properties), checked August 2026.
The buffer for what nobody priced is covered in renovation contingency, skips in skip hire cost, and the extras that appear mid job in builder extras.
Days multiplied by rate is the labour line, not the project. Price the whole job first and the day rate becomes what it should be: a way to sense check one line inside it.
Rate guides get republished without notice, so every figure here carries the date it was checked. Where a guide contradicts itself, both numbers are shown rather than the flattering one. None of this replaces a written quote from a local trade for your own job.
Cost guides written about one job print their own trade rates for that job, taken from the guide that priced it, so a figure on a project page here can sit inside the band above or a little outside it. The band on this page is the widest span across three general rate guides; a project page reads the guide that priced that project, which sets its own rates on its own date. Where two pages differ, each says which guide it read and on what date. The rates behind a single job are worked out in DIY savings and in load-bearing wall removal cost.
How this site handles prices and sources is set out in how we price.
The daily fee a tradesperson charges for labour, normally an eight hour day. It covers their time and nothing else: materials, waste removal, scaffolding and any other trades are priced separately, and VAT is added on top where the business is registered for it.
Because the published guides disagree, sometimes with themselves. Checkatrade prints a builder at £300 in one table and around £400 on its own builder page, both dated April 2026. MyBuilder publishes three different painter and decorator day rates on a single page. The band shown is the widest span across the guides rather than an average, so you can see the disagreement instead of having it hidden in a mean.
No published figure holds up well enough to quote as a percentage. MyBuilder says London and the South East sit 20 to 40% above the national average, then prints a regional table on the same page showing London at £233 against Manchester at £196, a gap of about 19%. Where one of these three guides does give a London rate next to its own national one, the gap ranges from nothing at the top of the electrician band to roughly half at the bottom of the tiler band.
On a day rate the risk of the job running long sits with you; on a fixed price it sits with the trade. Ask for a fixed price wherever the scope can be written down, such as a bathroom fit-out or an extension with drawings. A day rate is the more honest model where nobody can say what is behind the wall until it is opened up.