average wage of a sparks in the current climate

[m25maintenance]

£200 a day, or £37 per hour mon to friday 6am to 6pm. calls 6pm to 10 pm £60 per hour. emergency calls 10 pm to 6am are £150 1st hour and £60 ph after that. no if's or buts,if they dont wana pay get another guy. no charity here.london

 

[mike gibbons]

im a full time level 2 student and got site experience in air con and fridge before beign made redundent and ive spoke to everyone in the yellow pages rang every van i have seen and if i came across a electrician interegated him to death and sweet F.A ive offerd voluntry work for more than 20 hours a week making my own way to work but still they came up with the crap they aint busy enough and insurance reasons no matter how useless i'd still use them anyway if a lad offerd voluntry i aint got a slim chance of getting anything any time soon and millwall ken your right hair dressing is proberly the best things atm it seems to be busy.

 

[grantr37]

well the agencies will be creeping over this website seeing what intel they can get but as a guide I see that the standard approved rate is 17.00 per hour, which nobody gets and the standard non approved rate is supposed to be 15.50, but I'm afraid that the jobs out there pay a standard 12.50 an hour, even the ones that offer 14.50 on the advert give it the whole "I've been asked by the client...how low can you go.....just theoretically...so I get a better chance of securing you a job with the client"....this roughly translates...hold on a second...just until I run it through the electronic translateor.....beep beep duh beep....ah yes where was I, this translates into I'm going to charge the client 16 pounds an hour and pay you 12, and when you do weekends, I'm going to get 20 pounds an hour for your servitude and give you 14.25 so there....

I have had to laugh a few times in recent weeks when I have seen agencies advertising for Sparks and offering 7 pounds an hour, oh and you have to have your own car that fits the clients standards and a full clean licence, and it will involve long distance travel, overnight stays away etc.......do you pay digs?.....NO..DO YOU WANT THE JOB!!!!!.....um what about Mileage...NO........come to think about it do you pay travel time ...NO.....just a minute I think that theres somebody at the door, I'll call you back.....clank....not!


What does driving your own car do to your insurance, does it push it up ? or will you get checked over and busted by the cops for invalid insurance, as I have heard roumored recently....

 

[GJH]

I'm self employed with 16 years experience. JIB Gold card Technician grade. I charge £16.60 when i am subbying and £25.00 ph when doing my own work. Charge 40p per mile when travelling over 60 miles.

Earning between £500 to £1000 per week take home at the moment. I am more expensive than other people but i have worked hard to get there and why should i bring my rate down to what the 6 week quick course people are charging. You pay for my experience and knowledge.

You get what you pay for in my opinion and if you can convince the customer then you will always get repeat business.

I know one lad, £100 per day cash in hand. Not registerd, not insured, always busy but was found out. Did a few dodgy jobs because he was rushing to get to the next job because he was too cheap.Word went round like wild fire!! Now hes jacked it all in and got out of the trade all together.

Charge what you think is a good price and try and help the customer out by being polite, well spoken tidying up, keeping the site tidy etc. Sometimes good service is always as good as the job itself.

 

[SirKit Breaker]

I'm self employed with 16 years experience. JIB Gold card Technician grade. I charge £16.60 when i am subbying and £25.00 ph when doing my own work. Charge 40p per mile when travelling over 60 miles.

Earning between £500 to £1000 per week take home at the moment. I am more expensive than other people but i have worked hard to get there and why should i bring my rate down to what the 6 week quick course people are charging. You pay for my experience and knowledge.

You get what you pay for in my opinion and if you can convince the customer then you will always get repeat business.

I know one lad, £100 per day cash in hand. Not registerd, not insured, always busy but was found out. Did a few dodgy jobs because he was rushing to get to the next job because he was too cheap.Word went round like wild fire!! Now hes jacked it all in and got out of the trade all together.

Charge what you think is a good price and try and help the customer out by being polite, well spoken tidying up, keeping the site tidy etc. Sometimes good service is always as good as the job itself.

Well said. I don't think you are expensive either. You charge about the same as me, but i usually charge a day rate unless its a call out to a fault. I know what you mean about the cash in hand merchant's. A new customer, who is more than happy with my prices and service asked me this morning as she was writing another cheque out for more than a grand, "why do you keep giving me all these certificate thing's, and what are they for? the last electrician never gave me anything except receipts.

Cheers...........Howard

 

[Mr Mike]

He'll be the guy sat at home all week then, moaning theres no work around

Agreed.

 

[Mr Mike]

£250.00 per day sounds reasonable.

I am charging £200.00 for fully qualified and £100.00 for apprentice.

£35.00/ hr for qualified or £17.50/hr for apprentice.

Both me and **** are qualified, gold card holder and I have a good apprentice working for me.

I am mainly domestic, a little commercial and some agricultural, I am currently booking work for late January but then have March, April and May fully booked on a large development.

I have attached a copy of my terms/rates which I send with every quote.
.
.

Respect to you. Everything down on paper in black and white.

 

[Mr Mike]

Hi eggonyourface,
Min £20:00 hour, extensions etc day rate. If commercial/industrial then usually price work.
Van, tools, test equip, Napit.
Hate to say this but thirty years experience.
West Midlands area. Villa Park nearest land mark.

Must say...... good read.

 

[mattmoo1974]

£2 phr and all the tea i can drink

 

[Mr Mike]

£2 phr and all the tea i can drink

Have you got a stacker truck licence...... Why, how big is the tea pot?

 

[mattmoo1974]

Have you got a stacker truck licence...... Why, how big is the tea pot?

I shop in the polish lane at asda and im good on a broom
The tea pot is as big as there wallet

 

[LukeD]

cheapest tends to work out the most expensive in life.

All these answers dont mean much. If i lived in north wales and earned £140 a day i would be happy. But here in deepest London it would not cover a thing!!

I jst wonder what would happen if everyone removed themselves from agencies etc . The prices they pay are a joke and they are ruing the business .

Most of my work is not "notified" (not necessary) so that keeps it a lot simpler !

I have a set daily rate , A call out charge that is £60 for the first hour 7am-7pm £100 7pm-7am. I NEVER stretch a Job. But i also never accept people getting upset if its just a thrown fuse and 2 mins work .

The only way to save the industry i feel is to stop ANY prices getting lower. There is no respect for us anymore .

 

[LukeD]

its fine, you dont need to if you dont want to.

just trying to get a picture of whats available out there.

i know a couple of sparks who sub for a local electrician. he offered them £800 CASH to rewire like for like a 3 bed room house. they did it in 4 days. so it left them with £400 each!! out of that they had to pay about £60.00 to get there and another £100 on food to keep themselves going.

then theres another sparks i know who reckons he wont get out of bed for less than £250 a day!!

whats going on out there??

Hope those 2 guys give up !! All they are doing is making things worse. People who want to pay that sort of money are greedy .

 

[DurhamSparky]

i earn as a Commercial/Industrial FM Sparky / Mech / Coffee Machine Fixer (emphasis on Coffee Machine Fixer)

£31k (before overtime and Extra for Bank Holidays etc..) work 2 days 2 nights 4 off

 

[tonys]

The only way to save the industry i feel is to stop ANY prices getting lower. There is no respect for us anymore .

There ain't enough work for everyone, to many people and its a problem getting worse.

Companies encourage agencies, so I have two choices, either run adverts and try and get on the back of the one band man game or work for agencies, so at the moment I working for an agency for £14.50 an hour.

There ain't many agency jobs paying a lot more. The only way to make a stand is for everyone to put their tools down for a week and then just maybe then the people running the show and that's the Government might listen. But until then its a race to the bottom, because when people get desperate, they cut the cloth to fit to survive.

 

[millwall ken]

There ain't enough work for everyone, to many people and its a problem getting worse.

Companies encourage agencies, so I have two choices, either run adverts and try and get on the back of the one band man game or work for agencies, so at the moment I working for an agency for £14.50 an hour.

There ain't many agency jobs paying a lot more. The only way to make a stand is for everyone to put their tools down for a week and then just maybe then the people running the show and that's the Government might listen. But until then its a race to the bottom, because when people get desperate, they cut the cloth to fit to survive.

Oh come on Tony... You're far to strude a bloke; to believe that if people like you downed tools, then over people would do as well... No, they'd be straight on the dog to your employer looking to take over your work mate... Unfortunately, its dog eat dog know adays and to hell with the principles of the matter. This is why we're in a no win situation mate. Everyone is just out for themselves fella.

 

[mogga]

what ken says is well true there are probably a few forum members wanting to know who to phone for a start when you down tools

 

[LukeD]

Then i wish you all luck. This time next year you might be offered £11.00 a hour if your lucky

now lets work out what you will get

deduct your tax and contributions
deduct your tools and running costs of calibrations and exams etc
deduct vehicle and costs

Most of the house keepers i know in london are on £15.00 a hour and they pay nothing other than travel . You did all that training to earn peanuts ?

 

[Dazza1976]

It does seem there are many sparks out there, not getting paid what they are worth, after 3 years at college aswell as time on site learning hands on, i think the minimum we should be worth is £200 per day, afterall the work we do is very specialist and if not done correctly can potentially cause a fire or even death.
My mate passed his black cab knowledge on Monday, on his first day out on Wednesday after working 10 1/2 hours he came home with £320 in his pocket, Thursday he made £200 and friday he came back with £340 !! Its no wonder he is walking round with a permanent smile on his face, I almost feel like going and learning the knowledge myself !

 

[Paul.M]

Dazza don't even think about doing taxi-ing. Been there, done that and its worse than the electrics industry trust me. A lot of similaritys eg to many people doing it, prices staying the same but costs going up, no respect from customers for the job your doing. It's not as easy as you think.10 1/2 hours shift, that's part time mate and you would only just about cover your daily overheads with may be £30 to show for yourself. My running costs in Leeds were £450-£500 per week before I made a penny for myself. It would take me 4 days to do that amount and the rest of the week is all mine, just hope for a good weekend and then it starts all over again from Monday.

Back onto the op, I charge £20 ph + materials (20%) or what ever I can get from an employer atm, average wage up here is £10-£12 ph.