UK trades day rates in 2026: bricklayers, electricians, carpenters and more

Live-adjusted day rates for qualified UK tradespeople, with regional variation.

Trails Research·Updated 2026-04-18·5 min read
Typical UK day rates (qualified tradesperson, ex-VAT)
Bricklayer£240 to £320
Electrician£260 to £360
Labourer£150 to £200

Ranges adjusted to — via the ONS labour cost index (— YoY). Scroll for the full table + regional adjustment.

Day rates for UK trades are a moving target. Post-Brexit labour shortages, ageing workforces, and infrastructure demand have pushed rates up faster than general wage inflation since 2022, and they're still rising. The numbers below are indicative ranges for qualified, productive tradespeople, excluding VAT, aggregated from Checkatrade data, FMB benchmarks, and industry press.

Treat these as sanity-check ranges for benchmarking, not quotes. Actual rates vary significantly by the trade's reputation, project complexity, and how much work they have booked.

Current day rates (live-adjusted)

Region:
TradeDay rate (low)Day rate (high)
BricklayerQualified, productive on standard residential work£240£320
Carpenter / joiner1st + 2nd fix residential; higher for bespoke joinery£230£320
ElectricianQualified, Part P, standard residential rewires and installs£260£360
PlumberGas Safe usually adds a premium; rates below are standard£250£350
PlastererSkim finish; premium for polished plaster and specialist finishes£220£300
GroundworkerExcavation, foundations, drainage; higher for difficult sites£200£280
RooferStandard tile and slate work; higher for specialist (lead, flat)£230£320
TilerBathroom and kitchen work; premium for large-format / specialist£220£310
LabourerGeneral site labour, unqualified but productive£150£200
Site foremanRunning a small residential site day-to-day£300£400

All figures in £ per day, excluding VAT. Adjusted to — via the ONS labour cost index for construction, with regional factor applied.

How to use these rates

Sanity-checking a subcontractor quote

Work out the implied day rate from their quote (total value ÷ estimated days on site ÷ number of bodies). Compare to the range above. If the implied rate is well above the high end, there's a reason you should understand (premium spec? unusual access? specialist skill?) before accepting or pushing back.

Building a cost plan from first principles

For small residential work where a priced cost plan isn't available, you can build a rough estimate from trade days × day rate, plus materials, plus overhead. It's an approximation but anchors the conversation with a client on "where does the money actually go?" The labour portion of a typical rear extension is usually 50 to 60% of total project cost.

Negotiating fixed-price contracts with clients

Labour rates have risen roughly 4% year-on-year and continue to trend upwards (see labour vs materials divergence ). A fixed-price quote for work starting in nine months carries meaningful labour-drift risk. Either price the risk in, or add a contract mechanism for it.

Regional variation: what's going on

London rates sit ~12% above UK average, but the premium is concentrated in rarer trades: specialist brickwork, lead roofers, heritage joiners. Commodity trades (general labourers, standard plasterers) run closer to +6 to 8%. Outside London, variation is smaller than most practitioners assume; a bricklayer in Bristol and one in Leeds charge broadly similar rates, within a few percent.

Caveats worth knowing

  • Day rate vs hourly rate. Some trades quote hourly; the ranges above assume ~8 productive hours per day. Short jobs often pay half-day or minimum-visit rates that inflate the hourly effectively.
  • Own materials vs supply & fix. A "supply and fix" day rate is higher than a pure labour rate because the tradesperson is carrying inventory risk and finance cost.
  • Books-full premium. Busy trades with 8+ weeks of work booked will quote high to disincentivise further work. This is real market signal, not bad faith.
  • Overheads and margin on top. These are tradesperson-level rates. A contractor bundling labour into a project quote adds overhead and margin.

For the underlying labour cost index and how it's moved over time, see the Cost Tracker.

Frequently asked questions

What is the current day rate for a bricklayer in London in 2026?
London bricklayer day rates at the current release sit in the range of £280 to £340 per day for a competent tradesperson working through a subcontractor, rising to £350 to £400 for specialist work (facing brick, feature walls, heritage repair). The rate includes wage, statutory on-costs, and subcontractor overhead and profit, but not the labourer required to keep them productive. Labourer rates add roughly £170 to £210 per day. Figures are adjusted to the latest ONS labour cost index, which is published quarterly. Rest-of-UK rates sit 15% to 25% below London.
How do I convert an hourly labour rate to a day rate?
Standard practice in UK residential construction is an eight-hour working day, so hourly rate times eight gives the basic day rate. On top of that add travel time where applicable (typically 30 to 45 minutes each way in London and the South East), statutory holiday pay accrual (12.07% of pay), employer NI, and pension auto-enrolment. The subcontractor marks this up for overhead and profit typically 15% to 25%. So a tradesperson on £25 an hour becomes a subcontracted day rate closer to £280 than £200 once all the on-costs are loaded in.
Why are UK electrician day rates higher than bricklayer day rates?
Three drivers. First, certification: Part P registration plus qualification route (City & Guilds 2391, 18th Edition, JIB grading) means fewer people qualify. Second, demand from solar, EV chargepoint, heat pump installation under the Future Homes Standard is pulling electricians into new energy work, tightening the residential pool. Third, the testing and certification workload per job has grown materially, so each hour bills more. Current London electrician rates sit in the range of £320 to £400 per day for a qualified Gold Card holder, versus £280 to £340 for a bricklayer.
Where do Trails day rate figures come from?
Day rates on this page are derived from three inputs, reconciled each quarter: the ONS construction labour cost index (the inflation series), BCIS and Costmodelling published trade rates (the base levels), and Hays and Randstad construction salary surveys (for cross-check against permanent-equivalent day rates). The regional split is calibrated against Turner & Townsend's trade rate commentary and CITB's regional labour market reports. The figures are subcontracted all-in rates, not PAYE gross rates.
Do UK trade day rates include materials?
No. The day rates on this page are labour only. Materials, consumables, and hire (mortar, sand, nails, scaffolding, cement mixer, cutting disc) are billed separately, either on a measured work basis (rate per square metre of brickwork including materials) or as site supply priced at merchants list less the subcontractor's trade discount. A bricklayer on a £300 day rate will typically lay 400 to 500 bricks per day in standard domestic work, so the all-in brickwork rate for pricing purposes is the day rate divided by daily output plus the brick and mortar cost.

About this data

This article uses live data from Trails Cost Tracker, aggregating ONS Construction Output Price Indices, MHCLG Monthly Building Materials Statistics. Data is auto-refreshed each quarter.

→ See the full Trails Cost Tracker→ Methodology and sources

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