A m I an out of touch old fart ? I need a gardener as I fell over in mine and am not steady on my feet now. As someone who never paid for any service or repair to our houses/gardens, I'm 71 yrs and am " a bit surprised" that gardeners I have had quotes from want £1k a week. Comments welcome
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Gardeners rates
- Thread starter Nige F
- Start date
Guess it depends if they're self employed, assuming they are, they can deduct say 6 weeks for holidays inc bank holidays when they don't get paid, pension, then I guess they can't work every day due to the weather so that's another loss, then add a good few £K per year for vehicle maintenance/fuel, waste disposal, insurance, tool upkeep etc and suddenly that theoretical £52K per year is nothing like £52K per year.
Cash in hand should provide a good gardener for £100 to £110 per day.
Where are you in the UK ? Location matters a LOT
You should be able to find a decent labourer for £150 a day cash in hand. Put a postcard advert in a local shop window and see if that attracts some willing hands.
e.g "Day rate labour only required for garden work (spade & shovel) to prepare/set ground for a new lawn"
That's what I was thinking - East Sussex.
How on earth can someone survive on £100/day with a bunch of overheads?
I'm West Sussex so the rates should be about the same give or take a tenner.
Overheads? Cash-in-hand labour has little or no overheads and most probably working on the sly for beer money etc.
The thread isn't about labourers its about gardeners.
One of my best mates is a gardener. He went up to £25 an hour in west London about 3-4 years ago. He prompted me to put up my day rate as a decorator. Like me, the new rate only applies to new customers.
I would expect concentric circles pay wise as you move away from London. At a guess, vehicle aside, capital outlay is about £5k (?). The problem that they have is that they may spend a lot of time travelling between short jobs. I don't have that problem. On average, I will be at the same place for a minimum of 40 hours but my capital expenditure will be significantly higher. And I don't need to worry about paying to dispose a tree load of leaves at the local dump.
I would expect concentric circles pay wise as you move away from London. At a guess, vehicle aside, capital outlay is about £5k (?). The problem that they have is that they may spend a lot of time travelling between short jobs. I don't have that problem. On average, I will be at the same place for a minimum of 40 hours but my capital expenditure will be significantly higher. And I don't need to worry about paying to dispose a tree load of leaves at the local dump.
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