Headline benchmark
£200
A modelled decorator benchmark, published beside the £120 to £400 the guides themselves print.
A UK decorator charges around £200 a day.
Local figures run from £160 in Sunderland to £235 in Guildford.
Highest town
£235
Guildford, the biggest premium over the benchmark in the 30.
Lowest town
£160
Sunderland, £40 under the benchmark and the floor of the table.
Trades modelled
17
Each with its own page, its own 30 town table and its own published spread. Checked 5 July 2026.
Where the money is
Every modelled town, drawn where it is and sized by what it pays.
Lowest
£160
Sunderland
Highest
£235
Guildford
Each mark is a town you can open. Size and colour follow its own day rate, so the map and the tables below cannot disagree.
- Guildford£235
- Oxford£229
- Cambridge£226
- Brighton£219
- Bath£212
- Reading£210
- Bristol£206
- Milton Keynes£206
- Cheltenham£202
- Edinburgh£202
- York£195
- Exeter£194
- Portsmouth£194
- Northampton£192
- Southampton£191
- Cardiff£189
- Norwich£189
- Manchester£188
- Birmingham£186
- Leeds£185
- Leicester£182
- Coventry£182
- Glasgow£181
- Sheffield£180
- Derby£176
- Liverpool£175
- Newcastle£173
- Nottingham£173
- Stoke-on-Trent£168
- Sunderland£160
Reading itbigger and darker means higherGeographytown centre coordinates, not modelled data
Fig. 01 · all 30 modelled decorator towns
£200
£160Sunderland£235Guildford
Markone modelled townFlagthe £200 benchmark, with 10 of 30 towns above it
What the data says
Three findings from the modelled towns.
Electrician national benchmark
£280
Electricians lead the modelled trades.
Plumbers follow at £270 a day.
The Guildford to Sunderland gap
£75
Expensive towns to live in are expensive to hire in.
House prices explain most of the gap.
London pay above the UK median
+25%
London earns £958.20 a week, UK £766.60.
Expect London rates above every figure.
Day rate by trade
Every trade on one scale, so the ranges can be compared at a glance. Each trade name links to its own page and dataset.
The hour column is that range over a 7 hour working day, our arithmetic rather than a published figure, and the hourly rates page sets it beside what the guides publish.
| Trade | Day rate range | An hour | Range drawn to scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decorator | £160 to £235 | £23 to £34 | |
| Electrician | £224 to £329 | £32 to £47 | |
| Plumber | £216 to £318 | £31 to £45 | |
| Bricklayer | £208 to £306 | £30 to £44 | |
| General builder | £202 to £298 | £29 to £43 | |
| Kitchen fitter | £125 to £350 | £18 to £50 | |
| Tiler | £183 to £269 | £26 to £38 | |
| Roofer | £191 to £281 | £27 to £40 | |
| Plasterer | £184 to £271 | £26 to £39 | |
| Carpenter / Joiner | £192 to £282 | £27 to £40 | |
| Landscaper | £110 to £280 | £16 to £40 | |
| Gardener | £90 to £250 | £13 to £36 | |
| Drainage engineer | £180 to £265 | £26 to £38 | |
| Groundworker | £170 to £251 | £24 to £36 | |
| General labourer | £112 to £165 | £16 to £24 | |
| Gas and heating engineer | £207 to £305 | £30 to £44 | |
| Decorative plasterer | £180 to £265 | £26 to £38 | |
| Handyman | £150 to £221 | £21 to £32 | |
| Cladding installer | £140 to £206 | £20 to £29 | |
| Suspended ceiling installer | £140 to £206 | £20 to £29 |
Linkedthe 17 trades with a modelled 30 town table behind themUnlinkedguide sourced only, so there is no page to openBarthe published range on one shared scale
Your next step
You have the national picture, so the next step is the day rate your own costs need.
Pick your trade on the Rate Sorted calculator, add the take home you want and your running costs, and it returns a rate you can quote with.
How north and south compare
The same trade, the same method, 30 pounds apart.
South
£209
North
£179
£30a day between the 13 southern towns and the 7 northern ones
SouthSouth East, South West, East of EnglandNorthNorth East, North West, YorkshireExcludedMidlands, Scotland and Wales sit in neither
What every region pays
Median decorator rate, highest first.
Barmedian of that region's modelled townsLast columntowns behind that median
South East leads on a £210 decorator median and North East sits at £167.
That is a £43 regional gap on the same benchmark.
A region median is the median of the towns covered there, so a region with one town is that town.
The map above draws the same model town by town.
The spread is the story
Where houses cost more, so does the labour to work on them.
Common questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word.
What is a typical UK tradesperson day rate in 2026?
National benchmarks on this report run from £140 a day for general labourers to £280 for electricians, labour only, before materials and VAT.
Each trade page publishes its benchmark beside the spread the named UK price guides print for that trade.
The date each guide was read is printed beside it.
Which trade charges the most per day?
Electricians, at a £280 national benchmark.
Plumbers are next at £270, and general labourers anchor the bottom of the table at £140 a day.
How much does location change a day rate?
Up to £105 a day.
The widest gap this report models is for electricians: £329 in Guildford against £224 in Sunderland, for the same day of work.
How this report is built
The benchmark
Modelled, published beside the spread printed according to the named guides. The full register of guides and dates is on each trade page.
The town spread
Earnings data from the ONS, prices per the UK House Price Index. One multiplier per town, applied to every trade the same way.
No invented figures
Where a figure does not exist, the page says so rather than estimating one.
Free to cite
Every table downloads as the CSV behind it, under a CC BY licence with credit.
Read the full methodology →Who compiles this →
Rate estimates blend the national decorator day rate benchmark, published against the spread named UK trade price guides print, with official ONS regional earnings and local house price data.
Figures are modelled estimates for guidance, not quotes.
Sources: ONS ASHE 2025, UK House Price Index April 2026.
Take the data
Every figure on this site is free to use in articles, research and quotes. A link back is all we ask.
Download · CSVdecorator-day-rates-uk.csvAll 30 modelled decorator towns, with region and source.
Cite this reportThe Day Rate Report, UK tradespeople day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/
Need the local picture for decorators?Modelled day rates for 30 UK towns, region by region.Decorator rates by town →Writing about trade rates?Three pre packaged story angles, every figure sourced and downloadable.Press and story angles →A rate only tells you half of it.What the work takes, from published labour constants and manufacturer drying times.How long decorating takes →Looking for one particular town?All 30 town pages in one place, grouped by region, with every trade on each.Every town, by region →After an answer rather than a rate?12 guides on how long the work takes, what to charge and what a job costs in labour.All 12 guides →Working in London?London is not one of the 30 modelled towns, so that page prints what the named guides publish and nothing of ours.What the guides publish for London →