Hourly Rate for a Self Employed Electrician?

[flyingsparks]

After a lot of careful consideration and following on from my thread a couple months ago, I feel now is the time for me to be going self employed. I was wondering what is the going rate for a self employed electrician, I know it varys area to area, but I'm in Devon.

I am 9 years experienced with agricultural, industrial, commercial and domestic sectors, and feel I work tidy and effiecently. Can you charge more for industrial work?

Thanks.

 

[ricicle]

Work out what all your monthly outgoings for the business are. Decide what salary you want per month. Divide by the number of hours you want to work a month and go from there with contingency plans !

 

[ericmark]

When I talked to my son who was self employed he considered 1/3 over the cards in rate to cover no holiday, reduced sickness, and overheads.

However he could not get that so he went cards in.

 

[flyingsparks]

When I talked to my son who was self employed he considered 1/3 over the cards in rate to cover no holiday, reduced sickness, and overheads.

However he could not get that so he went cards in.

Sorry for being a bit blonde, but dont quite know what you mean?!

 

[flyingsparks]

Work out what all your monthly outgoings for the business are. Decide what salary you want per month. Divide by the number of hours you want to work a month and go from there with contingency plans !

I see your point, but if I come up with £30/hr and others locally charge £20, then Im not going to get any business?!

 

[Diyisfun]

Charge for the job.
Me as a customer I dont want an hourly rate.
So work out how much a day you want/need to earn & then price each job on a part of a day of course you have to allow for travel.
You will also bebuying goods at trade & charging the customer full price.

 

[ricicle]

Work out what all your monthly outgoings for the business are. Decide what salary you want per month. Divide by the number of hours you want to work a month and go from there with contingency plans !

I see your point, but if I come up with £30/hr and others locally charge £20, then Im not going to get any business?!

Unfortunately that's what business is about. If you need to earn £30/hr then so be it. Unless you can afford to not pay yourself a salary then you could reduce but why work for nothing ?
Those charging unrealistically low rates are either not declaring tax or not paying insurances or the like. Some people might be fortunate enough to have no mortgage so they might not need to earn as much.
There is no way round charging what you need to charge.

 

[Chri5]

You will also bebuying goods at trade & charging the customer full price.

Only if your customers are dumb.

The net gives everyone access to information, maybe I can add in £100 on a £1000 of materials.

Most big jobs I do I build a bill of quantities and get the client to buy, if they don't want to then I add handling and time to order fetch.
It avoids me getting near VAT registration and makes the client feel "warm" because they know their not being ripped.

A few suppliers give me 5-10% trade discount, long gone are the days when I can make 30% of material value before hour / day / week labour charges.

 

[sparkybird]

why not ring a few of your competitors posing as a potential customer and see what their hourly rates are? Then see if your business plan stacks up on the same or less rates. Once you get established and recommended for work word of mouth, then you can put your rates up

BTW I generally price by the job, not hourly, but in order to come to these figures I need to know how much I need to charge per hour or per day - so you need to know the amount really

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Only if your customers are dumb.

Or if they are smart enough to realise that what matters is the number in the bottom RH corner, and that if that contains a mark-up component which they deny you then all you will do is to add it back in as a higher labour component. And then they'll be worse off.

 

[flyingsparks]

Thanks all. Sparky bird, thats a good idea, maybe not strictly speaking "correct" but could be worth a try.

So would you usually charge for say half a day (you could say £110 / half day or £200 per full day for example) even if a job only took 1 hour?

Understand you need to account for traveling time and paperwork and certification etc.

I worked out (very roughly) my overheads, including van running costs, diesel, insurances scheme membership etc etc would cost me about £3.50 / hour, for a 40 hour week.

 

[flameport]

I worked out (very roughly) my overheads, including van running costs, diesel, insurances scheme membership etc etc would cost me about £3.50 / hour, for a 40 hour week.

Your business may of course be different to others, however those figures are implausibly low.

 

[dingodeano]

I try and earn £120 - 150. Per day. If I'm getting materials then there's 10% on those too.
Any one man band still charging £200 per day outside London and working 5-6 days week is doing well.

 

[RF Lighting]

Just looking at my year end accounts, my overheads include:


Use of home as office. Extra heating, lighting, electricity.
Printing expenses. Printer ink, paper etc
Envelopes and stamps
Phone bill
Purchase of laptop
Workwear and laundry
Motor expenses. Tax, insurance, MOT, service, tyres, diesel etc.
Depreciation of van.
Public liability and professional indemnity insurance
Scheme membership
Calibration of test equipment
Purchase of hand tools.
Purchase of power tools
Depreciation of tools
Accountants fees

Not to mention time spent driving to and from jobs, wholesalers etc. Time spent viewing jobs, then pricing up and sending quotes, invoicing, doing certificates and notifying jobs etc etc.


I'm sure I'll have missed plenty off that list.
I spent £2,500 on diesel alone in the last 6 months.

 

[flyingsparks]

Rf thanks for that list there is a couple things there I forgot about such as van depreciation and hand tools. Thinking I had everything already you forget they brake or wear out! Will look at my figures again!!