Cost of brick work?

[bigegg]

£300 a day works out at £72,000 for 48 week year! Not bad - better than airline pilots - train drivers - even junior doctors!

knock off tax, NI. sick days. accounting fees. holiday pay. quiet periods. vehicles. equipment. book-keeping. bad debts. pension. non of which airline pilots, train drivers or junior doctors have to worry about.
lucky to clear half that for 60+ hours a week.

 

[LewisT]

knock off tax, NI. sick days. accounting fees. holiday pay. quiet periods. vehicles. equipment. book-keeping. bad debts. pension. non of which airline pilots, train drivers or junior doctors have to worry about.
lucky to clear half that for 60+ hours a week.

Think there must be a mistake on my pay slip, cause i pay tax NI and pension contributions at source.(no chance of undeclared earning), employed people still need vehicles to commute to work. and fizzy had included holiday pay in his calculation 48 weeks

 

[fizzy]

knock off tax, NI. sick days. accounting fees. holiday pay. quiet periods. vehicles. equipment. book-keeping. bad debts. pension. non of which airline pilots, train drivers or junior doctors have to worry about.
lucky to clear half that for 60+ hours a week.

How many jobs are cash in hand though?
I understand about the rest though. I used to be an IT contracter.
Maybe I am out of touch but £300 or £350 a day for manual labour seems a lot. Supply and demand I suppose.

 

[bigegg]

Think there must be a mistake on my pay slip, cause i pay tax NI and pension contributions at source.(no chance of undeclared earning), employed people still need vehicles to commute to work. and fizzy had included holiday pay in his calculation 48 weeks

s/e pay higher ni

airline pilots might drive to work - but they don't pay for plane fuel. a doctor doesn't pay for the maintenance of the hospital.
a builders van is no good to take the kids for a day out to the coast, so he'd need a car as well.

s/e don't get "employer contribution" for pensions.
they only need one non-payer for a 3k job, and that's two weeks wage gone. - and still have the expenses to pay, so probably best part of a months wage gone.
3 of those in a year, and that's poverty line.
a train driver
doesnt pay public liability insurance or an accountant to do his taxes.

I worked out a few years ago that if I charged £20 an hour for my time - cutting hedges and lawns - I actually cleared less than £7 /hr after expenses and the "unpaid" hours - book-keeping/chasing money/banking, machinery maintenance, getting fuel, marketing, travelling between jobs - mightadd 8-10 hours to my working week.

 

[bigegg]

How many jobs are cash in hand though?
I understand about the rest though. I used to be an IT contracter.
Maybe I am out of touch but £300 or £350 a day for manual labour seems a lot. Supply and demand I suppose.

£35 an hour doesn't seem unreasonable to me, tbh. *employed* fencing labourer/drivers are on £15 an hour round here (just seen an advert) - and that's without the overheads that go with being self employed.

 

[fizzy]

£35 an hour doesn't seem unreasonable to me, tbh. *employed* fencing labourer/drivers are on £15 an hour round here (just seen an advert) - and that's without the overheads that go with being self employed.

Some IT contractors are lucky to get that after years of study and experience.

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

How many jobs are cash in hand though?
I understand about the rest though. I used to be an IT contracter.
Maybe I am out of touch but £300 or £350 a day for manual labour seems a lot. Supply and demand I suppose.

It ii a lot. I cant bill much over 200 and get work as a chippie.

 

[Cuthy246]

Work in the construction industry (mostly infrastructure) doing materials testing, we are £45/hour on site + travel time (£30/hour) + mileage and then if we do testing back at the lab that's anything from £12 to £160 per test. A days work for us costs the client an average of £700 and we usually work a job for 3 - 12 days depending on size of site, some jobs run for months with us on site every day at that cost, quickly adds up. Quoted for a job on one of the Scottish Islands they were looking at £2500 for one days work (2 days travel + accommodation + lots of miles + ferry tickets). My better half works in the medical sector (quality control - databases and the like) and it is fairly common to come across s/e consultants with fees of £1500/day obviously no guarantee of work but you only need to work 47 days a year at that wage to make £75k annual before tax etc. think I am in the wrong profession .

 

[bigegg]

It ii a lot. I cant bill much over 200 and get work as a chippie.

including a labourer?

 

[bigegg]

How many jobs are cash in hand though?

you might as well say "how many airline pilots steal food from first class, how many train drivers steal diesel, how many doctors steal drugs?"

just as illegal as a builder doing cash in hand jobs. a builder is possibly less likely to get caught, though?
and even cash In hand jobs have overheads.

 

[Gritineye]

Don't think anyone's mentioned the weather yet, like today, loverly day for bricklaying, oops there goes me line again, again!

 

[bigegg]

It ii a lot. I cant bill much over 200 and get work as a chippie.

chippie work isn't as dependant on the weather, tho?
I'd think you can work year round, doing internal stuff, whereas there's got to be at least 20 or 30 days per year when a brickie can't work?

 

[bigegg]

Don't think anyone's mentioned the weather yet, like today, loverly day for bricklaying, oops there goes me line again, again!

lol
concurrent post.

 

[addjunkie]

here in the north east, for weekend cash work it's about £150/day for a good bricky

reading here maybe that's a bit cheap.... he's really good/quick too!

Thats about right, I have two stone mason / brickies working for me at the moment, there is also an apprentice and a labourer. £22 for the mason per hour, £15 for the other two, the labourer, drives diggers and such too, if required. Joiner, who is comming next week to do the roof, is the same rate £22 per hour, but hes not getting paid as weve used barter, and hes taking some ewe lambs in exchange. These lads are all self employed, run vans and buy their own tools, though they are using my mixer, digger, and tractor as a fork lift.

They have about 3, 5 day weeks left. Being random stone their work, on refurbing an old barn, isnt as predictable, but on block work the slap it up at a fair rate. When on sites they are £420 for a thousand bricks. With weather they have lost a day and a half this week so far, none of them are cowboys, dont take the michael. And do a decent job, but Im around, and they know, I will know if they take the michael. We are also rural where there isnt so much work, and reputation is still valuable.

I pay them every fortnight. And cash is still king, but none want all cash as its hard to hide. Ive also done a deal with one of the masons, whos building his own house, for some old stone gate posts and stone quoins I have spare.

 

[Olderisbetter]

Although it looks like the "pros" sometime get it wrong

View attachment 161042

Im guessing that new build was probably bought "off plan"

I wasn't aware Stevie Wonder had another trade.

 

[premmington]

£300 a day works out at £72,000 for 48 week year! Not bad - better than airline pilots - train drivers - even junior doctors!

A lot of self employed tradesman earn more than the prime minister - you just gotta be good at the job and there needs to be a demand for your services.

I am a self employed auto electrician the minimum I charge is £50 an hour - sometimes double that to main dealers and truck franchises. Plus we have a margin we earn on parts.

Only last week - we did a few hours for a agricultural machinery supplier - they charge their customers - £140 an hour plus VAT. I billed him the same rate - because in my heart of hearts - if they are charging there customers the rate - calling us in to do work they cannot do - I feel we are worth the market rate they have set....

Most days I will charge out - six hours labour - but I end up working ten or twelve hours.

 

[Monkey Harris]

We have a company here ..
paying Russian brickies 2.5k ..a week...

If they don't pay that...they won't get brickies...

 

[premmington]

When you look a tradesmans wages now - it begs the question - why would you want to go to collage and get a degree with £40k plus in debt before you 21st birthday.

 

[Olderisbetter]

I do all my own block work but my brick laying is slow and a bit messy, I needed a wall built earlier in the year that was about 3 feet high and 15 feet long, I got told it would cost more to use salvage bricks as they were an odd size and it would be 2 months before he had time, After asking a few other brickies i did it myself, It is not perfect but i wanted something that looked old and knackered so im all good and saved a money.

 

[knighty]

that looks really good to me!