What actually moves construction pay rates

We do not publish a rate card. Any table we printed would be wrong within a month, and a brand built on accuracy cannot afford a page of stale numbers.

What we can do is explain what moves the number, so when a consultant quotes you a rate you can tell whether it is a real market rate or somebody guessing.

Four things move it.

Trade and grade

The obvious one, and the one people flatten. Within a single trade the spread between a competent operative and a good one is routinely twenty to thirty per cent, and it is usually the right money to spend. A groundworker who sets levels correctly the first time costs more per day and less per metre.

Tickets narrow the pool and lift the rate. A plant operator with three categories is more expensive and more useful than three operators with one each.

Location

This is the biggest single mover and it is not simply London versus everywhere else. It is travel time and parking. A site inside the London congestion or ULEZ zones with no parking prices differently from one on the M25 with a compound, even at the same postcode band. A rural site an hour from the nearest town of any size prices up for the same reason.

The practical rule is that pay follows the cost of turning up, not the map.

Season and pipeline

Groundworks and external trades tighten in spring as programmes start, and loosen through the winter. Fit out and internal trades run counter to that. When several large schemes in one region mobilise in the same quarter, every trade on those schemes goes up locally, sometimes sharply, and it has nothing to do with the national picture.

If your programme lets you mobilise a labour heavy phase in January rather than April, you will pay less for the same people.

Notice and duration

A gang you can book three weeks out costs less than the same gang you need tomorrow. Emergency cover is a real premium and always has been.

Duration works the other way. A twelve week booking is worth more to an operative than a three day one and often prices slightly under it per day, because he is not carrying the gaps.

What this means for a budget

Budget on a range, not a number, and hold the range against the season you are actually building in. If somebody quotes you a single national figure for a trade with no questions about where the site is or when you need people, they are not pricing your job, they are quoting an average.

Ask three questions of any rate you are given. What is that for, exactly, in terms of grade and tickets. How many worked hours does the day cover. And what is on top of it.

On our terms the answer to the last one is always the same, a flat £25 per person per day, and a day rate covers nine worked hours. The operative’s rate moves with the market. Ours does not.

Tell us the trade, the postcode and the start date and we will give you the real number for that job, not an average.