19/03/2025
So I rarely (if ever) rant on Facebook but I just read this article on the "My Job Quote" website and can't believe what I'm reading!
When I prepare quotes I work out the costs in detail for each job specifically and aim to strike a fair balance between making a workable profit and delivering good value for my customers.
Sometimes I then look at websites like these to see how my pricing compares with the ball-park averages that they provide, being aware that my customers might look to these sort of websites to form an idea of what a reasonable cost is for any given piece of work.
I am preparing a quote for Cedar external cladding at the moment and looked up the webpage, here:
https://www.myjobquote.co.uk/costs/external-cladding-or-rendering-costs
The estimates given are ridiculously low, and this is really unhelpful as it sets an unrealistic expectation for customers and leads to bad feeling when real quotes are provided.
Drilling down into the details you can see why their estimates are so low! They state "A carpenter will cost you around £125 a day". However, the reality is the average day rate for a carpenter just turning up at a building site to work is around £175 - £200 per day (see the Reed agency website , here: https://www.reed.co.uk/average-salary/average-carpenter-salary. Taking their stated average salary of £38,500 and dividing by 225 days, i.e 45 full weeks per year assuming the UK minimum 5.6 weeks holiday entitlement.)
BUT BEAR IN MIND that ALL the cost of planning and organising the work, the cost of sundries, the safety management and of course the risk of making a profit or not is all borne by their employer!
These carpenters just turn up, work hard and go home with £200 a day.
But if you are engaging a self-employed or small business outfit you need to expect that their quote will necessarily include enough to cover all these aspects in addition to the take-home pay.
And it gets worse. My Job Quote also state "The day rate of a simple labourer will usually be £50 to £60 per day".
£50 / 7.5 hours = £6.66 per hour. That is HALF the current Minimum Wage!
Have these people heard of the Minimum Wage?!
Or are they actually promoting modern slavery?
I would urge customers not to rely too much on these sites for price information (or not at all in the case of 'My Job Quote')
Instead I would advise customers to get two or three comparison quotes from local, reputable, and fully insured tradespeople, and to use those quotes as the basis for forming budget expectations.
Thanks for bearing with my rant. I'll try not to do it too often!
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