National rank
16 of 30
15 towns model higher than this one.
£189 in Cardiff, and Norwich lands on the same figure.
Wales pay of £704.30 a week on £271,000 housing gets there.
Norwich gets there on East of England pay of £766.60 and £230,000.
Modelled from two published statistics, Wales median weekly pay of £704.30 and Cardiff housing at £271,000, both sourced 5 July 2026 and cross checked further down this page.
How Cardiff compares with the other 29
30 towns, one axis. Cardiff is the marked tick, at £189 on a rail running from £160 in Sunderland up to £235 in Guildford, which puts it £11 below the drawn £200 benchmark.
Cardiff £189
£200 benchmark
Cardiff sits £46 under Guildford at the top and £29 over Sunderland at the bottom.
One other town shares that mark: Norwich, also £189.
Cardiff's marker is the decorator rate.
It is the trade the model anchors on, and the other 16 move with the same multiplier, from £132 for general labourer work to £264 for electrician work.
Regional rank
1 of 1
Against the 1 town we model in Wales.
Versus benchmark
£11 down
5.5 percent below the £200 national decorator benchmark.
Nearest neighbour
£189
The only town we cover in Wales.
What 17 trades charge in Cardiff
17 trades, one town. A Cardiff day runs from £132 for general labourer up to £264 for electrician, which is a £132 span on what is otherwise the same working day, priced through Wales earnings.
Every one of the 17 is the same 5 to 6 percent down on Cardiff geography, because one multiplier built from Wales pay and Cardiff house prices moves all of them together.
| Trade | Day rate | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|
| Electrician£16 below the £280 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £264 | |
| Plumber£15 below the £270 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £255 | |
| Bricklayer£15 below the £260 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £245 | |
| Gas and Heating Engineer£15 below the £259 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £244 | |
| General Builder£14 below the £253 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £239 | |
| Carpenter and joiner£13 below the £240 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £227 | |
| Roofer£13 below the £239 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £226 | |
| Plasterer£13 below the £230 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £217 | |
| Tiler£13 below the £229 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £216 | |
| Drainage Engineer£13 below the £225 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £212 | |
| Decorative Plasterer£13 below the £225 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £212 | |
| GroundworkerModelled only£12 below the £213 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £201 | |
| Painter and decorator£11 below the £200 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £189 | |
| Handyman£11 below the £188 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £177 | |
| Cladding Installer£10 below the £175 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £165 | |
| Suspended Ceiling Installer£10 below the £175 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £165 | |
| General Labourer£8 below the £140 benchmark on Cardiff geography. | £132 |
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 Cardiff 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 Cardiff 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 Cardiff, so the next step is pricing one of your own jobs there.
The Rate Sorted calculator opens already set to Cardiff, so your own costs go in and a Cardiff rate you can quote with comes out.
How long the work takes in Cardiff
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 Cardiff rates can be multiplied out.
A decorating job in Cardiff comes to £378 to £756, on the 16th dearest day rate of the 30 towns on this site.
decorating in Cardiff
£378 to £756
A painter and decorator day in Cardiff models at £189, 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 Cardiff
£239 to £369
A plasterer day in Cardiff models at £217, 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 Cardiff
£540 to £691
A tiler day in Cardiff models at £216, 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 Cardiff 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 Cardiff measurement.The same 3 jobs come to the same money in Norwich, which reaches £189 a decorator day on £230,000 housing and East of England pay of £766.60.
Why Cardiff prices as it does
Cardiff reaches £189 by a different route to Norwich.
£271,000
The average house price, against £291,000 across the UK.
£704.30
The Wales median weekly pay Cardiff is modelled on, 8.1 percent below the UK median of £766.60.
0.93x
Property against the UK average, 7 percent below 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 Cardiff 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 Cardiff charged for a day of work; what they show is why Cardiff lands where it does.
Wales WEEKLY PAY
£704.30
Cardiff is modelled on the Wales median for full time work, according to ONS ASHE April 2025.It is 8.1 percent below the UK median of £766.60 a week, and Cardiff models at £189 a decorator day on it.Wales ranks 9 of the 11 regions on the register, and Cardiff is 1 of the 1 Wales town we model on it.
Cardiff HOUSE PRICES
£271,000
The Cardiff average, data from the ONS local housing price pages, April 2026 provisional.That is 0.93 times the UK average of £291,000, per the UK House Price Index.13 of the 30 towns we cover have more expensive housing.
Cardiff questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word, and every figure in them is a Cardiff figure printed above.
What is a typical day rate in Cardiff?
A decorator day in Cardiff models at £189.
That is number 16 of the 30 towns on this site.
Across the 17 trades a Cardiff day runs from £132 for general labourer work up to £264 for electrician work, every one of them modelled on Wales earnings and Cardiff house prices.
Which trade charges the most per day in Cardiff?
Electrician, at £264 a day.
General Labourer work is the cheapest of the 17, at £132.
That leaves a £132 span for the same working day in the same town, and it happens because every trade carries its own national benchmark before any Cardiff geography is applied to it.
Why do Cardiff and Norwich have the same day rate?
Both model at £189 for a decorator day.
They arrive there from different places: Cardiff on Wales weekly pay of £704.30 against an average house price of £271,000, Norwich on East of England pay of £766.60 against £230,000.
Housing is the wider of the two gaps, with Cardiff at 0.93 times the UK average house price and Norwich at 0.79 times.
The earnings side of the model closes most of that gap back up, which is how both land on £189.
How does Cardiff compare with the rest of Wales?
Cardiff is the only Wales town on this site, so the only comparison available is the national one: £189 for a decorator day against £235 in Guildford at the top of the 30 and £160 in Sunderland at the bottom.
That is a £75 spread nationally, and Cardiff sits £29 up from the bottom of it.
Why are Cardiff rates below the national benchmark?
Two published statistics move the Cardiff figure: Wales median weekly pay of £704.30, 9 of the 11 regions on the register, and a local average house price of £271,000, 14 of the 30 towns.
Together they put Cardiff £11 under the £200 national decorator benchmark.
That is 5.5 percent down.
Can I use these Cardiff figures as a quote?
No. £189 is a modelled town figure, and the modelled range beside it, £142 to £246, is arithmetic on that figure rather than a measurement of Cardiff jobs.
16 of the 17 Cardiff 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 Cardiff rows, £132 to £264. Each row carries its own provenance, so a modelled Cardiff figure can never be read as a sourced one.
Download · CSVcardiff.csvOne row per trade, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, Cardiff day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/day-rates/cardiff/
Embed this figure
The Cardiff 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/cardiff/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/day-rates-cardiff.png" alt="Day rates for 17 trades in Cardiff, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The Cardiff 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.