Electrician's Hourly Rates

[ebee]

Well yes there is bound to be a bit of that. Despite all other considerations it is human nature that if all and sundry around you are charging £1000 an hour you would surely be very tempted to do similar (some might say daft not to) but if you live in an area where everybody charges about £100 per day then you would be inclined to charge nearer that.
Personally I never set out deliberately to charge more/less/ the same as anyone else. I sways looked at what I needed to live and then charge an amount I consider fair to myself and my customers for the work done and the way I do it. Perhaps not best business sense because I could have charged more but also I always refused to join into a race to the bottom too, that just depresses prices for everyone. Many jobs I did that competing prices were lower or higher than my own but success rate of turning estimates to invoices was about 70% or over. Because they wanted me on many cases rather than someone else.
I have a friend who charges less than me, gets near 100% of his work, often working 7 days a week yet earning less than me. I think his pricing is too low.
Again what is included in your our and what is done free or charged extra or whether you charge travelling time ad infinitum all play a part to get to the end price anyway.
Sometimes even comparing job total price can be like comparing apples with oranges.
Demean I am right and others are wrong
It just means they are different

 

[JohnW2]

So you think in your Utopian world that the pay rates should be the same the whole country over ? Really?

It's very far from "Utopian" but, as I keep saying, I know (not just 'think') that its a situation that millions of people have to accept.

To be clear I know you are wrong. This is never going to happen.

As above, it has already 'happened' for very many people.

 

[JohnW2]

That was my point; you can (and good forum etiquette is you should) edit down the block of text you're quoting to just the salient point you're responding to.

This was a specific situation, in which I was (following a moan) moving a discussion into a new thread, and wanted to quote all of the most recent pertinent post in the previous thread. I made rthe mistake of literally copying/pasting it. Had I used the multi-quote facility, then it would not have been counted in the 'character count' because, as you say ..

..... You'll note now that massive blocks of text are hidden behind a fixed height fade-out so there isn't any point quoting more than the fade height's worth of text anyway; no one will expand it to read it

Why will London clients find £50 an hour acceptable while Lincoln clients will prefer £25? Because London clients are used to it,...

Exactly. "How it is", not necessarily very justifiable.

.... The electrician that does their work will be in a similar boat locally and have to charge £50 an hour just to afford his life.

As I have repeatedly acknowledged that this is an issue, but have also repeatedly pointed out that millions of people have to accept 'national' pay levels. There have been decades of discussion about 'regional pay scales for (for example) NHS employees and civil servants but, other than for pretty pathetic 'London Weighting' where it exists, nothing has yet happened.

Do you believe that your argument is stronger for tradesmen than it is for, say, doctors, nurses and civil servants?

... In the case of contract hire, that is true, but in a permanent role the company will know where the employee lives.

We are talking about per-job pricing by tradesmen, not salaries for permanent employment - not the least because I know nothing about how those salaries vary for, say, electricians around the country.

Is the London-dwelling electrician's dwelling not a "location specific expense" to extract? Cockney spark still has to pay their own mortgage on their ridiculously-more-expensive-than-the-same-thing-in-wales house, and eat more expensive food, have more expensive nights out

See above.

I would also add that this generic reference to 'London' may be fairly misleading, since there are some areas of London where much of the population is pretty 'poor', and less able than many to pay high prices for services.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

Isn't this is just an example of market pricing? You charge as much as your market will bear without losing out to competitors too much.

Exactly. "Charging as much as one can get away with" - and. of course, not long before the prices get accepted as "how it is".

It's amazing what "How it is" situations people rapidly come to accept. A couple of weeks ago, my wife bought some new glasses and, despite my 'advice' paid a high-street optician's prices for 'fairly cheap' frames - which, as she told me, tended to be in the £50 - £100 price range -,despite the fact that I find it hard to believe that what she bought (three plastic mouldings and a couple of diddy hinges) would have cost more than about £1 to mass produce!

'The market' is gullible

Kind Regards, John

 

[Murdochcat]

Exactly. "Charging as much as one can get away with" - and. of course, not long before the prices get accepted as "how it is".

Wrong again.

We charge the rate for the local area. Here in Surrey everything is expensive - are you going to get every other service reduced to a UK wide level.

Maybe you should give up with your pointless thread - its not achieving anything other than you trying to say trades people rip off their clients - which is something many never do

 

[carmanmemoranda]

I have a friend who charges less than me, gets near 100% of his work, often working 7 days a week yet earning less than me. I think his pricing is too low.

There's a lot like that in the motor trade

Often referred to as busy fools

 

[JohnW2]

Well yes there is bound to be a bit of that. Despite all other considerations it is human nature that if all and sundry around you are charging £1000 an hour you would surely be very tempted to do similar (some might say daft not to) but if you live in an area where everybody charges about £100 per day then you would be inclined to charge nearer that.

Exactly - as I've just written, it's a question of "how it is". When, sensible/justifiable or not, something (like the price of goods or services) comes to be 'expected'/'accepted', then that becomes "how it is".

Personally I never set out deliberately to charge more/less/ the same as anyone else. I sways looked at what I needed to live and then charge an amount I consider fair to myself and my customers for the work done and the way I do it.

Very reasonable, but even that is not totally straightforward - since "what you need to live" depends upon a lot of things, particularly "how you choose to live". If you 'chose' to live in a mansion, drive a Ferrari and have multiple exotic holidays every year, it might be less than reasonable to price your services so as to support that lifestyle

Perhaps not best business sense because I could have charged more ....

I'm sure I have previously mentioned my Great-Grandfather, who ran a bakery, a couple of shops/'tea-rooms' and a catering business, which became progressively more 'successful' over the years. He paid (and treated) his staff very well, and paid himself what he considered to be a 'reasonable income'(to support his, relatively modest, lifestyle). If, at the end of the year he found that left his business with a 'profit', he reduced his prices for the next year - not too good for the tax man, but good/'decent' for all his customers (he was a very 'holy' man!)

.... I have a friend who charges less than me, gets near 100% of his work, often working 7 days a week yet earning less than me. I think his pricing is too low.

I've spent much of my professional working life being told by colleagues that "I do not charge enough", but it has generally(not always!) been 'enough' for me, so I've generally remained content with the situation.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

Wrong again. We charge the rate for the local area.

Indeed - "what you can get away with charging" in the local area.

.... its not achieving anything other than you trying to say trades people rip off their clients - which is something many never do

You seem to have totally missed the point. It's nothing to do with individual trades people ripping anyone off. As ebee has just written, whether one calls it 'human nature' or anything else, if the accepted ''going rate' for a particular job in a certain area is (for whatever reason) £X, and if customers in that area are prepared to pay that amount, then only a daft trades person would charge appreciably less than that 'going rate' which they could get - and that's as true of me as anyone else.

 

[Murdochcat]

Indeed - "what you can get away with charging" in the local area.

Absolutely NOT. its got absolutely nothing to do with "what you can get away with charging"

I could charge less or more but I don't - I charge a rate that is reasonable for my area of expertise that seemingly lots of happy clients are happy to pay.

You really need to give up on this agenda you have, as its not achieving anything constructive

 

[robinbanks]

what you gonna do for the last 2 hours.

Something else on site (c'mon; there's no shortage of things that need doing on most sites),

or

go home early and enjoy some free time.

If you're on day rate, don't charge me 8 hours work and do 6; that irks me to the point that it terminates the contract

 

[JohnW2]

Absolutely NOT. its got absolutely nothing to do with "what you can get away with charging"

So why do you think that your equivalents in a much less 'expensive' part of the country (perhaps rural Wales) do not charge the same as you do - is it not because "they wouldn't get away with it" (i.e. customers in their area wouldn't pay that much) ?

You really need to give up on this agenda you have, as its not achieving anything constructive

The world doesn't revolve around you. You are perfectly free to withdraw from the discussion (and ignore it) if you so wish.

 

[JohnW2]

Personally I don’t think hourly rates are that helpful

As I said before, I don't think they are helpful to, or wanted by, most customers, and I think that quoting on an 'hourly rate' basis can result in so many issues/arguments that I think it is therefore best avoided.

As I keep saying, what I've been talking about the notional 'hourly rate' which a trades person uses, together with an estimate of the amount of time that will be needed, to arrive at (after adding materials cost and any job/location-specific expenses) a total figure to quote to the potential customer.

if a job takes say 6 hours, I would say that should be charged as 1 days labour…

I agree. In fact, personally, other than for unusually small tasks, I generally base my calculations (for quotes) on 'days'(or, at least, half-days).

if a job takes an hour, then a “minimum 1 hr call-out “ should apply

Something like that is obviously reasonable. I generally feel (and make clients aware) that it's simply not worth my while to take on any task for which I wouldn't be able to charge on the basis of at least 'half a day's work.

I recently had to 'disappoint' a client who seemed to seriously think that I would be prepared to travel a long distance (hours) (at their expense0 to attend a meeting and be paid just for the 30 minutes of time they estimated the meeting would last for. I eventually found a sane person in the company and I did attend the meeting (which, indeed, was less than an hour in duration) but charged as if it had been a job which had taken all day. There is, or should be, a lot of common sense needed in this!

Kind Regards, John

 

[robinbanks]

I would be prepared to travel a long distance (hours) (at their expense0 to attend a meeting and be paid just for the 30 minutes of time

I didn't understand the "at their expense" bit. Does it mean they bought your train ticket but didn't pay you for the time you spent sitting on the train?

 

[ebee]

Well the sitting on the train one is a good example. Does my 30 mins actual work include a mark up to cover travelling time too or do i apply my normal hourly rate to the whole lot?
Two persons each charging on tge different basis might well charge the same total or there again might not.
A tradesman might work 60 hours a week on average doing 40 hours chargeable work.
So might charge an extra 50% per hour on his wage to compensate.
Travelling, giving free estimates and going to wholesalers might or might not be included in this.

Please forgive my use of the term - average- it is probaly the most dangerous word in the universe

 

[robinbanks]

When I contract I give the clients an allowance for travel of an hour a day -essentially the max amount of time I'd want to commute for in a traditional employee setting. Any time spent travelling over that gets billed at a reduced rate (I don't regard travelling as mentally or physically taxing) unless I'm actively able to do some task for them (e.g. graphic design while on a train) in which case it's billed as full rate for all the time that I work. Thus if I spend 3 hours in a train, working the entire time, 3 hours in their office, an hour finishing the work on the train home and 2 hours looking out of the window they get billed 7 hours full, 1 hour reduced and 1 hour isn't billed.
What I'd aim to do is drop onto someone else's work in the last two hours rather than look out of the window, so long as my brain isn't cabbaged, which means the first client is billed 6 hours and the second is billed 2. The reduced rate kicks in more often if I drive as I can't easily do work and pilot a vehicle simultaneously, which is a detriment to me financially but not so taxing

These things are a matter of agreement with the client; some have been amenable, some haven't. I'm less enthusiastic about engaging in repeat business with the less amenable ones