National rank
7 of 30
6 towns model higher than this one.
£206 in Bristol, and Milton Keynes lands on the same figure.
South West pay of £728.70 a week on £354,000 housing gets there.
Milton Keynes gets there on South East pay of £775.80 and £318,000.
Modelled from two published statistics, South West median weekly pay of £728.70 and Bristol housing at £354,000, both sourced 5 July 2026 and cross checked further down this page.
How Bristol compares with the other 29
30 towns, one axis. Bristol is the marked tick, at £206 on a rail running from £160 in Sunderland up to £235 in Guildford, which puts it £6 above the drawn £200 benchmark.
Bristol £206
£200 benchmark
Bristol sits £29 under Guildford at the top and £46 over Sunderland at the bottom.
One other town shares that mark: Milton Keynes, also £206.
Bristol's marker is the decorator rate.
It is the trade the model anchors on, and the other 16 move with the same multiplier, from £144 for general labourer work to £288 for electrician work.
Regional rank
2 of 4
Against the 4 towns we model in the South West.
Versus benchmark
£6 up
3.0 percent above the £200 national decorator benchmark.
What 17 trades charge in Bristol
17 trades, one town. A Bristol day runs from £144 for general labourer up to £288 for electrician, which is a £144 span on what is otherwise the same working day, priced through South West earnings.
Every one of the 17 is the same 3 percent up on Bristol geography, because one multiplier built from the South West pay and Bristol house prices moves all of them together.
| Trade | Day rate | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|
| Electrician£8 above the £280 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £288 | |
| Plumber£8 above the £270 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £278 | |
| Bricklayer£7 above the £260 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £267 | |
| Gas and Heating Engineer£7 above the £259 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £266 | |
| General Builder£7 above the £253 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £260 | |
| Carpenter and joiner£7 above the £240 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £247 | |
| Roofer£7 above the £239 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £246 | |
| Plasterer£6 above the £230 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £236 | |
| Tiler£6 above the £229 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £235 | |
| Drainage Engineer£6 above the £225 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £231 | |
| Decorative Plasterer£6 above the £225 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £231 | |
| GroundworkerModelled only£6 above the £213 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £219 | |
| Painter and decorator£6 above the £200 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £206 | |
| Handyman£5 above the £188 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £193 | |
| Cladding Installer£5 above the £175 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £180 | |
| Suspended Ceiling Installer£5 above the £175 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £180 | |
| General Labourer£4 above the £140 benchmark on Bristol geography. | £144 |
Heads upEvery benchmark is a modelled estimate published beside the spread the price guides themselves publish, and is never the median of a directory.Each row above says what Bristol does to that trade.The day rate ranges the price guides publish are national, so they sit on each trade's own page rather than being reprinted on all 30 town pages.Follow any Bristol row to read them.
Scale every bar drawn on £110 to £440Bar the modelled range, the rate x 0.75 and x 1.30No spread 1 of the 17 rows, marked MODELLED ONLY, where no UK price guide publishes a comparable day rate
Your next step
You have what 17 trades charge in Bristol, so the next step is pricing one of your own jobs there.
The Rate Sorted calculator opens already set to Bristol, so your own costs go in and a Bristol rate you can quote with comes out.
How long the work takes in Bristol
A rate prices a day and a job takes several of them. This site publishes a length for 3 of the 17 trades above, so those 3 Bristol rates can be multiplied out.
A decorating job in Bristol comes to £412 to £824, on the 7th dearest day rate of the 30 towns on this site.
decorating in Bristol
£412 to £824
A painter and decorator day in Bristol models at £206, and decorating a living room takes 2 to 4 days.Source: Robin Gofton, Decorator's Forum UK, job reports.How long does decorating take?
plastering in Bristol
£260 to £401
A plasterer day in Bristol models at £236, and skimming 35 square metres of wall and a 16 square metre ceiling takes 1.1 to 1.7 days.Source: Methvin plastering production rates, updated 1 August 2026, fast to slow.How long does plastering take?
tiling in Bristol
£588 to £752
A tiler day in Bristol models at £235, and fixing and grouting 20 square metres of bathroom wall takes 2.5 to 3.2 days.Source: Methvin tiling production rates, updated 1 August 2026, fast to slow.How long does tiling take?
Read the sumEach figure above is a Bristol day rate multiplied by a job length, and Day rate or price per job? is where that sum is worked in full.It is our arithmetic rather than a price anybody quoted, and none of the 3 lengths is a Bristol measurement.The same 3 jobs come to the same money in Milton Keynes, which reaches £206 a decorator day on £318,000 housing and South East pay of £775.80.
Why Bristol prices as it does
Bristol reaches £206 by a different route to Milton Keynes.
£354,000
The average house price, against £291,000 across the UK.
£728.70
The South West median weekly pay Bristol is modelled on, 4.9 percent below the UK median of £766.60.
1.22x
Property against the UK average, 22 percent above it.
ONS local housing prices, April 2026 provisional, UK House Price Index.
Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) April 2025 regional medians.
Registers sourced 5 July 2026.
How Bristol stands on the two cross checks
Both are published statistics. Neither sets a rate on this page, and neither is a survey of what anyone in Bristol charged for a day of work; what they show is why Bristol lands where it does.
South West WEEKLY PAY
£728.70
Bristol is modelled on the South West median for full time work, according to ONS ASHE April 2025.It is 4.9 percent below the UK median of £766.60 a week, and Bristol models at £206 a decorator day on it.South West ranks 7 of the 11 regions on the register, and Bristol is 2 of the 4 South West towns we model on it.
Bristol HOUSE PRICES
£354,000
The Bristol average, data from the ONS local housing price pages, April 2026 provisional.That is 1.22 times the UK average of £291,000, per the UK House Price Index.5 of the 30 towns we cover have more expensive housing.
Bristol questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word, and every figure in them is a Bristol figure printed above.
What is a typical day rate in Bristol?
A decorator day in Bristol models at £206.
That is number 7 of the 30 towns on this site.
Across the 17 trades a Bristol day runs from £144 for general labourer work up to £288 for electrician work, every one of them modelled on South West earnings and Bristol house prices.
Which trade charges the most per day in Bristol?
Electrician, at £288 a day.
General Labourer work is the cheapest of the 17, at £144.
That leaves a £144 span for the same working day in the same town, and it happens because every trade carries its own national benchmark before any Bristol geography is applied to it.
Why do Bristol and Milton Keynes have the same day rate?
Both model at £206 for a decorator day.
They arrive there from different places: Bristol on South West weekly pay of £728.70 against an average house price of £354,000, Milton Keynes on South East pay of £775.80 against £318,000.
Housing is the wider of the two gaps, with Bristol at 1.22 times the UK average house price and Milton Keynes at 1.09 times.
The earnings side of the model closes most of that gap back up, which is how both land on £206.
Is Bristol dearer than Cheltenham?
Bristol is the dearer of the two: £206 in Bristol against £202 in Cheltenham, a £4 gap on a decorator day.
Bristol and Cheltenham both sit in the South West.
Bristol ranks 2 of the 4 towns we model there.
Why are Bristol rates above the national benchmark?
Two published statistics move the Bristol figure: South West median weekly pay of £728.70, 7 of the 11 regions on the register, and a local average house price of £354,000, 6 of the 30 towns.
Together they put Bristol £6 over the £200 national decorator benchmark.
That is 3.0 percent up.
Can I use these Bristol figures as a quote?
No. £206 is a modelled town figure, and the modelled range beside it, £155 to £268, is arithmetic on that figure rather than a measurement of Bristol jobs.
16 of the 17 Bristol rows carry a spread that UK price guides publish nationally, on the trade's own page, and 1 are modelled with none.
Take the data
17 Bristol rows, £144 to £288. Each row carries its own provenance, so a modelled Bristol figure can never be read as a sourced one.
Download · CSVbristol.csvOne row per trade, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, Bristol day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/day-rates/bristol/
Embed this figure
The Bristol card carries the decorator rate and the date it was sourced, and the link goes to this page.
<a href="https://thedayrate.co.uk/day-rates/bristol/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/day-rates-bristol.png" alt="Day rates for 17 trades in Bristol, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The Bristol figures are free to use in an article, a fact check or a local story, and a credit with a link back is all we ask, under CC BY 4.0.