How Much Should an Electrician Charge in the UK?

TL;DR: Most UK electricians set a rate by copying the firm down the road, then wonder why a full diary still ends the year tight. Your price should start from your own costs (van, insurance, scheme membership, test gear, and the hours you cannot bill), not from a competitor's quote. This guide walks through the costed hour, hourly versus day-rate versus fixed-price, the EICR pricing trap, and a worked example with real numbers.

Ask ten UK electricians what they charge and you will get ten different answers, most of them guesses. One says £45 an hour because that is what his old gaffer charged. Another quotes £280 a day because it sounds about right. Neither has worked out what the business actually needs to take, which is how both can be flat out all year and still finish skint.

The honest answer is: enough to cover your real costs, pay yourself a proper wage, and leave something over for the quiet months and the next van. That figure is personal to your business, and borrowing someone else's rate is how you inherit their mistakes.

Before you look at what anyone else charges, work out what one hour of your time has to earn. This is the number every other pricing decision hangs off, and most electricians have never sat down to calculate it.

Your costed hour is not your wage. It is the rate that covers everything the business has to pay for, divided by the hours you can actually sell. The gap between those two numbers is where margin quietly disappears.

Three things make the costed hour higher than people expect:

• Unbillable time. Quoting, driving, collecting materials, certification paperwork, chasing payment, the books. A 40-hour week rarely holds more than 25 to 30 billable hours.
• Standing costs. Van finance and fuel, public liability and tools cover, your scheme membership (NICEIC, NAPIT or similar), calibrated test equipment, phone and software. These get paid whether you work or not.
• The slot you cannot resell. A cancelled morning is gone. You cannot stack it on top of next week.

Price the time honestly first, then check it against the local market. Doing it the other way round, market first and costs second, is how the trade ends up underpaid.

Say you want to take home £38,000 a year before tax. That is your wage, not your turnover.

Now add the costs the turnover has to cover on top: van and fuel at roughly £6,500, insurance and scheme membership at £2,000, test gear, calibration and consumables at £1,500, phone, accounting and software at £1,000. That is around £11,000 of standing cost, so the business needs to bill about £49,000.

Here is the part that trips people up. You do not get 1,600 billable hours from a working year. After holidays, illness, quoting and certification admin, a realistic figure for a solo electrician is closer to 1,100. Divide £49,000 by 1,100 and your costed hour is roughly £45.

That is the floor before profit. Charge £40 an hour thinking it is a healthy rate and you are running at break-even, with nothing left to grow or carry a slow January. A defensible domestic rate that includes a real margin lands closer to £55 to £65 an hour once you have done this sum, not because the market says so but because your own numbers do.

These figures are illustrative. Your van cost, your area and your billable hours will differ, which is exactly why a borrowed rate is a poor fit.

To run the sum on your own numbers, an electrician pricing calculator (P05 Pricing Calculator Premium, £14.99) is an 8-sheet Excel workbook built to do this properly, so the rate on your quotes is the rate your business actually needs.

Once you know your costed hour, the model you quote in is a separate decision. Each suits different work.

Hourly suits short, unpredictable jobs: a fault-find, a tripping circuit, a diagnostic where nobody knows the scope until the board is off. The risk sits with the customer, which is fair when the work is genuinely unknown. Set a sensible minimum so a 30-minute call still pays for the drive.

Day-rate suits bigger, planned work like a consumer unit change, a rewire or a run of new circuits. It is simpler to quote and the customer knows the daily figure up front. Build your day-rate from your costed hour multiplied by billable hours in a day, not clock hours. A day-rate built on eight hours when you bill six is a quiet pay cut you hand yourself.

Fixed-price suits well-defined jobs you have done many times, like a standard board swap or an EV charger install. You carry the risk, so price in a buffer for the job that goes sideways. Done right it is the most profitable model, because the efficiency you have earned stays with you instead of being handed back on the clock.

Most established electricians use all three depending on the job. The mistake is forcing every job into one out of habit.

EICRs are where electricians most often undercharge, because landlords shop them on price alone. A "£99 EICR" advertised down the road tempts you to match it, but that figure rarely accounts for the testing time, the report write-up, and the customer-facing cover letter that explains the C1s and C2s.

Price the EICR like any other job: the time on site, plus the time at the laptop, plus the cost of the kit that makes the test valid. A report that takes you two hours on site and an hour to write up is not a £99 job at a £45 costed hour. Racing competitors to the bottom on EICRs is how a busy month still loses money.

Many sole-trader electricians sit under the VAT registration threshold and add no VAT, so the price you quote is the price the customer pays.

The threshold is £90,000 of taxable turnover in a rolling 12 months. Check the current figure on GOV.UK before you assume either way, because it moves and crossing it changes the maths for a domestic-focused business.

If you are VAT-registered, your prices to consumers should be shown including VAT, and your rates still need a margin once that 20% is accounted for.

This is where clean records earn their keep. An electrician financial forms bundle (P07 Financial Forms Bundle Standard, £11.99) gives you the invoice, expense and mileage forms that keep the numbers behind your pricing straight, so deciding whether to register is a calm call rather than a January panic.

A calculator will not tell you the right price on its own, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. The number it produces is a floor and a guide, not a guarantee a customer says yes. Local competition, your reputation, how booked you are, and how urgently the customer needs the power back on all move the final figure.

If you are starting out and need work through the door, pricing slightly under your full margin for a season to build a book is a legitimate different decision, as long as you know you are doing it and set a date to put it right. The danger is not charging a low rate on purpose. It is charging one by accident, year after year, because you never costed the hour.

A price you cannot present cleanly gets discounted at the door. Once your numbers are sorted, the rate needs to live in your quotes and terms, which is what an electrician business document set (P01 Business Documents Standard, £11.99) is for: the quote, estimate, deposit terms and invoice that carry your costed rate through to the customer in one consistent style.

And if you are still working out which paperwork to set up first, our checklist of the essential documents every UK electrician needs walks through the practical set in order.

Cost your hour first, choose the model that fits the job second, and price from your own numbers rather than the firm down the road. That is the difference between an electrician who is busy and one who is paid.

This article is general guidance, not tax advice or legal advice, written for UK electricians. Verify current VAT thresholds and HMRC rules on GOV.UK before making registration or pricing decisions.