Labour rates for plumbing & heating engineers

[Ray Stafford]

Hi All

I thought you might be interested in our annual survey, which includes statistics on labour rates charged across the country. 335 plumbing and heating businesses took part, from all over the country.

We run the survey in conjunction with HPM Magazine, and you can see their edited version on [DLMURL="http://www.hpmmag.com/readnow/#/32/"]this link[/DLMURL]. You may have to wait a moment or two for it to jump to page 32, which is where the article appears.

The detailed stats don't appear in the magazine (edited out to make it fit the page) but if you are interested:

General plumbing work:
Upper Decile: £60 per hour
Upper Quartile: £40 per hour
Median: £30 per hour
Lower Quartile: £25 per hour
Lower Decile: £20 per hour.

If you aren't used to quartiles and deciles, the easiest way to think of it is this. We put all the survey responses in value order, with the highest figure at the top, and the lowest at the bottom. Then count down from the top until you are 10% of the way down, and read off what that respondent said. This is the top decile - 10% of respondents charge this figure or more, and 90% charge this or less.

The top quartile is 25% down the list, and the median is the middle value - the mid point. The bottom quartile is the figure threequarters down the list, so this plumber is cheap compared with 75% of the competition, but dearer (or the same) as the remaining 25%. It sounds a bit complicated, but it removes the odd effect of very large or very small figures.

Gas Work:
Upper Decile: £65 per hour
Upper Quartile: £50 per hour
Median: £40 per hour
Lower Quartile: £30 per hour
Lower Decile: £25 per hour

Gas Boiler service - single appliance only:
Upper Decile: £80
Upper Quartile: £66
Median: £60
Lower Quartile: £50
Lower Decile: £35

What do you expect to happen labour rates in the next 12 months?
1.8% of respondents said they would rise by more than 25%
5.1% of respondents said they would rise by between 10% and 25%
22.1% said they would rise by less than 10%
64.8% said they would not change
4.2% expected a small fall of less than 10%
1.8% expected a larger fall - between 10% and 25%
0.3% expected a fall in labour rates of more than 25%

How expensive do you think you are compared with your competitors?
Expensive - 3.9%
Average - 72.5%
Cheap - 23.6%

These figures show no significant change from the 2011 survey.

You won't be surprised to learn that London is the most expensive area, although the difference is not nearly as big as people seem to believe. There is also a little cluster in Staffordshire, which for some reason seem to achieve higher prices than elsewhere. It may just be half a dozen plumbers on a trade counter somewhere in Staffordshire deciding to have a laugh, and put some rogue figures into the data!
Once out of the M25, there is little difference between rates in (say) Kent or Surrey compared to Cornwall or Yorkshire.

I do have the figures broken down by postcode area. With 335 firms participating, not every postcode area has enough data to be meaningful, and because we are southern based, the data is better for Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire, Kent and South London than anywhere else. If you would like figures for your postcode area, PM me the postcode and the type of work you do, and I will try to get more accurate info for just your area. It may take a day or two before I respond, so please be patient - a lot depends on how many people are interested.

Best regards

Ray

 

[AWheating]

direct labour rates, self employed or both?

my location direct labour rates are around £9-£12 an hour, subcontracting to firm alittle more around £12-15. private work alittle higher.

for GSR i should add.

 

[Ray Stafford]

This is the rate that gets charged to the customer.

It may or may not bear any relationship to the rate that the individual operative gets paid.

 

[stevetheplumber]

obviously you didnt include pimlico plumbing in your survey

 

[stevetheplumber]

direct labour rates, self employed or both?

my location direct labour rates are around £9-£12 an hour, subcontracting to firm alittle more around £12-15. private work alittle higher.

for GSR i should add.

£9 per hour is a ridiculously low figure for any tradesman to charge thats 72 per day it must cost you minimum of 20 a day just to run a van public liability work wear stationary thats with out any fuel or advertising

 

[Deleted member 25704]

For the las few years I have charged £25 per hour. However, I have had no work.

So what people say they charge, and how much work they get, and whether they get paid are variables that should be considered.

Spoke to a local plumber the other day who is rushed off his feet on £10 per hour.

I suspect the underlying mime of the research is to over-inflate plumbers' wages, which is good for selling courses and the sort of thing visitors to this site want to read! since they have spent ££££s on training.

 

[Ray Stafford]

obviously you didnt include pimlico plumbing in your survey

The respondents names are given in confidence, so I can't confirm or deny! However, the point of using quartiles, deciles and median is that they eliminate the effect of a small number of very high or very low prices. If you use an average (mathematical mean), then one or two outlying pieces of data can skew the results quite badly.

 

[Ray Stafford]

I suspect the underlying mime of the research is to over-inflate plumbers' wages, which is good for selling courses and the sort of thing visitors to this site want to read! since they have spent ££££s on training.

Hi Clanger - sorry to spoil the conspiracy theory.

The survey started years ago, as the result of a casual conversation on our Fareham trade counter. It interested me, so I took a straw poll of the next few dozen plumbers who came in, and we published the results. What amazed me at the time was the enormous difference in rates - there were tradesmen who I considered first rate blokes (the ones I would let work in my house) charging about half the rate that competitors were charging.

This still happens - this year we had five respondents living within the same postcode area, (GU6) charging £25, £30, £40, £45 and £50 and all thinking that they are average! Its just poor market research on their part.

We have done it every year since 2004, mostly just for our customers information. All the responses were collected either on our tradecounters or via the HPM magazine, and are absolutely genuine.

What part of the country are you in - if you give me the first 3 characters of your postcode, I can give you the data for your area. (assuming that we had enough responses from that postcode).

 

[petercj]

335 respondents spread all over the country is too small a sample to tell anyone anything much at all.

33.5 plumbers in say 10 regional areas, what could that possibly tell anyone!

The use of statistical terms is a bit of a joke.

 

[Orry Clayton]

335 respondents spread all over the country is too small a sample to tell anyone anything much at all.

33.5 plumbers in say 10 regional areas, what could that possibly tell anyone!

The use of statistical terms is a bit of a joke.

Shh - Don't tell the government that.

 

[petercj]

Shh - Don't tell the government that.

They've got 123,000 names and photographs on a register already ... there is no hiding place if you're gas registered! lol

GSRs survive on an average of £200 quid a week - so I've heard - like farmers, they do it because they love the work! lol

 

[Roger Welton]

I will also add in my experience of what people charge, the most expensive are by no means the best, or even using quality materials!

 

[Ray Stafford]

335 respondents spread all over the country is too small a sample to tell anyone anything much at all.

33.5 plumbers in say 10 regional areas, what could that possibly tell anyone!

The use of statistical terms is a bit of a joke.

Hi Petercj

I'll happily acknowledge that its far from being perfect, but I don't think its without value. Many more respondents would improve the sample, and next year I will probably use this forum to try to boost the number of responses.

We have asked the same base set of questions over several years, which allows trends to appear - some of which I discuss in the article linked to in the OP. It was hard work writing it this year, because the overwhelming story the data was telling was "everything is much the same as last year" - this is hard to make interesting! Whilst I agree that this could be statistical accident, I don't consider that very likely.

Regarding the use of statistical terms, when I first did the survey I used maximum, minimum and mean. This was deeply unsatisfactory, and gave way too much credence to outlier data - particularly to one or two very large values which I thought may not be true. The shift to using median, quartile and decile was an attempt to manage this better.

I only have three motivations for doing it, all of which I am happy to admit are self-serving:

1) It gets our name in the HPM magazine twice a year
2) It is in my business interests that plumbers and heating engineers don't undercharge for their services because of lack of market research. If all our survey does is set them thinking and doing more thorough research in their own area, then thats fine. With the greatest respect to our customers, many of them are skilled and experienced tradesmen, but their business skills don't necessarily match their technical skills. A customer who goes bust or leaves the industry because they made poorly informed business decisions is a waste of a perfectly good customer! Thats not to say that all tradesmen match this profile - a significant number are very canny indeed - but a fair proportion aren't.
3) Because I enjoy it. I like analysing the numbers, imperfect though they may be, and trying to puzzle out the trends that underpin them. Fortunately, I have reached that stage in my life where I can afford to indulge my interests from time to time.

If you have a better idea for methodology (without incurring large costs) I would be happy to consider it.

Ray

 

[hammers4spanner]

Upper Decile: £60 per hour
Upper Quartile: £40 per hour
Median: £30 per hour
Lower Quartile: £25 per hour
Lower Decile: £20 per hour.


Well this is not anything new all you have done is covered the general rates of what we already knew , i could of pulled out a contractors list of various firms i have workeed for which cover £20 per hour upto £60 per hour

There is a better methodology and its contact a qs and find out all the local labour rates on your doorstep meaning your immediate competitors couldnt care who was charging what in kent when i live 250 miles away

Read more: http://www.ukplumbersforums.co.uk/p...plumbing-heating-engineers.html#ixzz28plxgyOG

 

[Dannypipe]

Thanks so much for doing this Ray. If you have the time, I would be interested in the details for the TN postcode area?

 

[Ray Stafford]

Thanks so much for doing this Ray. If you have the time, I would be interested in the details for the TN postcode area?

No worries Dannypipe - when I am back in work tomorrow and have access to the data, I will look it up and PM it to you.

 

[lbp plg & htg]

There will always be someone cheaper, there will always be someone dearer.

 

[Dannypipe]

Thanks very much indeed.

 

[REDSAW]

Thanks so much for doing this Ray. If you have the time, I would be interested in the details for the TN postcode area?

its £3.50 an hour mate

 

[AWheating]

£9 per hour is a ridiculously low figure for any tradesman to charge thats 72 per day it must cost you minimum of 20 a day just to run a van public liability work wear stationary thats with out any fuel or advertising

thats direct labour, with van, tools and polo shirt. i agree its pants but people are working for this type of money. My area has a plumber living in every street. normally a fast tracker in his mothers corsa lol

 

[REDSAW]

i hear 200 came of that new hospital?.

go and burn down dudley college.lol

 

[Blake]

thats direct labour, with van, tools and polo shirt. i agree its pants but people are working for this type of money. My area has a plumber living in every street. normally a fast tracker in his mothers corsa lol

I'd move or go work in ASDA for the same money :0

 

[petercj]

Hi Petercj

I'll happily acknowledge that its far from being perfect, but I don't think its without value. Many more respondents would improve the sample, and next year I will probably use this forum to try to boost the number of responses.

We have asked the same base set of questions over several years, which allows trends to appear - some of which I discuss in the article linked to in the OP. It was hard work writing it this year, because the overwhelming story the data was telling was "everything is much the same as last year" - this is hard to make interesting! Whilst I agree that this could be statistical accident, I don't consider that very likely.

Regarding the use of statistical terms, when I first did the survey I used maximum, minimum and mean. This was deeply unsatisfactory, and gave way too much credence to outlier data - particularly to one or two very large values which I thought may not be true. The shift to using median, quartile and decile was an attempt to manage this better.

I only have three motivations for doing it, all of which I am happy to admit are self-serving:

1) It gets our name in the HPM magazine twice a year
2) It is in my business interests that plumbers and heating engineers don't undercharge for their services because of lack of market research. If all our survey does is set them thinking and doing more thorough research in their own area, then thats fine. With the greatest respect to our customers, many of them are skilled and experienced tradesmen, but their business skills don't necessarily match their technical skills. A customer who goes bust or leaves the industry because they made poorly informed business decisions is a waste of a perfectly good customer! Thats not to say that all tradesmen match this profile - a significant number are very canny indeed - but a fair proportion aren't.
3) Because I enjoy it. I like analysing the numbers, imperfect though they may be, and trying to puzzle out the trends that underpin them. Fortunately, I have reached that stage in my life where I can afford to indulge my interests from time to time.

If you have a better idea for methodology (without incurring large costs) I would be happy to consider it.

Ray

There is no point in using such methodology with such little data.

The Gas Safe website states that there are 123,000 GSR engineers registered in the UK. Off the top of my head I would suggest that you could at least double that number as a guesstimate of the number of non-gas plumbers in the UK.

Applying the methodology to such a small sample doesn't mean that the results have any statistical significance.

Also, the variation in charging by a single GSR/Plumber will probably have a greater variance than the figures shown, e.g. GSRs in our area still get around fifteen hundred pounds for a boiler change (low end boiler), so on a straightforward swap-over they will be on around one hundred pounds per hour. However, if they fit a tap their charges are likely to be around 40 pounds an hour.

I don't know one GSR/Plumber who would give a straight answer to the question: "how much do you charge an hour?": they will all say they quote for a specific piece of work. If they do state an hourly rate, it's likely to be lower than their actual average rate.

A more accurate non-scientific survey would to be to contact a number of GSR's/Plumbers in a given area and ask how much they charge for: *a straightforward boiler swap; *changing a kitchen mixer tap; *standard vented cylinder, etc, etc. Which would provide some indication of charging for various types of work, if not of a standard hourly rate for each GSR/Plumber.

I would expect to find that there was more consistency for boiler swaps than the fitting of kitchen mixer taps, or something like changing a radiator, but would remain open to being proved wrong by making such inquiries. I would also expect to find that as times get harder, so the variance in charging increases.

 

[AWheating]

i hear 200 came of that new hospital?.

go and burn down dudley college.lol

they are just in the process of building/ new parts of the college in the town center, so it will take some doing. I could just concentrate on mons hill and take the plumbing department out LOL.

 

[markadams]

Does your survey only cover England? I would be interested to see if the prices change for other parts of the UK, Wales and Scotland for example.