National rank
12 of 30
11 towns model higher than this one.
£194 in Exeter, and Portsmouth lands on the same figure.
South West pay of £728.70 a week on £287,000 housing gets there.
Portsmouth gets there on South East pay of £775.80 and £250,000.
Modelled from two published statistics, South West median weekly pay of £728.70 and Exeter housing at £287,000, both sourced 5 July 2026 and cross checked further down this page.
How Exeter compares with the other 29
30 towns, one axis. Exeter is the marked tick, at £194 on a rail running from £160 in Sunderland up to £235 in Guildford, which puts it £6 below the drawn £200 benchmark.
Exeter £194
£200 benchmark
Exeter sits £41 under Guildford at the top and £34 over Sunderland at the bottom.
One other town shares that mark: Portsmouth, also £194.
Exeter's marker is the decorator rate.
It is the trade the model anchors on, and the other 16 move with the same multiplier, from £136 for general labourer work to £272 for electrician work.
Regional rank
4 of 4
Against the 4 towns we model in the South West.
Versus benchmark
£6 down
3.0 percent below the £200 national decorator benchmark.
What 17 trades charge in Exeter
17 trades, one town. A Exeter day runs from £136 for general labourer up to £272 for electrician, which is a £136 span on what is otherwise the same working day, priced through South West earnings.
Every one of the 17 is the same 3 percent down on Exeter geography, because one multiplier built from the South West pay and Exeter house prices moves all of them together.
| Trade | Day rate | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|
| Electrician£8 below the £280 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £272 | |
| Plumber£8 below the £270 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £262 | |
| Bricklayer£7 below the £260 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £253 | |
| Gas and Heating Engineer£7 below the £259 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £252 | |
| General Builder£7 below the £253 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £246 | |
| Carpenter and joiner£7 below the £240 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £233 | |
| Roofer£7 below the £239 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £232 | |
| Plasterer£6 below the £230 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £224 | |
| Tiler£6 below the £229 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £223 | |
| Drainage Engineer£6 below the £225 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £219 | |
| Decorative Plasterer£6 below the £225 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £219 | |
| GroundworkerModelled only£6 below the £213 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £207 | |
| Painter and decorator£6 below the £200 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £194 | |
| Handyman£5 below the £188 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £183 | |
| Cladding Installer£5 below the £175 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £170 | |
| Suspended Ceiling Installer£5 below the £175 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £170 | |
| General Labourer£4 below the £140 benchmark on Exeter geography. | £136 |
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 Exeter 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 Exeter 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 Exeter, so the next step is pricing one of your own jobs there.
The Rate Sorted calculator opens already set to Exeter, so your own costs go in and a Exeter rate you can quote with comes out.
How long the work takes in Exeter
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 Exeter rates can be multiplied out.
A decorating job in Exeter comes to £388 to £776, on the 12th dearest day rate of the 30 towns on this site.
decorating in Exeter
£388 to £776
A painter and decorator day in Exeter models at £194, 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 Exeter
£246 to £381
A plasterer day in Exeter models at £224, 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 Exeter
£558 to £714
A tiler day in Exeter models at £223, 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 Exeter 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 Exeter measurement.The same 3 jobs come to the same money in Portsmouth, which reaches £194 a decorator day on £250,000 housing and South East pay of £775.80.
Why Exeter prices as it does
Exeter reaches £194 by a different route to Portsmouth.
£287,000
The average house price, against £291,000 across the UK.
£728.70
The South West median weekly pay Exeter is modelled on, 4.9 percent below the UK median of £766.60.
0.99x
Property against the UK average, 1 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 Exeter 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 Exeter charged for a day of work; what they show is why Exeter lands where it does.
South West WEEKLY PAY
£728.70
Exeter 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 Exeter models at £194 a decorator day on it.South West ranks 7 of the 11 regions on the register, and Exeter is 4 of the 4 South West towns we model on it.
Exeter HOUSE PRICES
£287,000
The Exeter average, data from the ONS local housing price pages, April 2026 provisional.That is 0.99 times the UK average of £291,000, per the UK House Price Index.12 of the 30 towns we cover have more expensive housing.
Exeter questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word, and every figure in them is a Exeter figure printed above.
What is a typical day rate in Exeter?
A decorator day in Exeter models at £194.
That is number 12 of the 30 towns on this site.
Across the 17 trades a Exeter day runs from £136 for general labourer work up to £272 for electrician work, every one of them modelled on South West earnings and Exeter house prices.
Which trade charges the most per day in Exeter?
Electrician, at £272 a day.
General Labourer work is the cheapest of the 17, at £136.
That leaves a £136 span for the same working day in the same town, and it happens because every trade carries its own national benchmark before any Exeter geography is applied to it.
Why do Exeter and Portsmouth have the same day rate?
Both model at £194 for a decorator day.
They arrive there from different places: Exeter on South West weekly pay of £728.70 against an average house price of £287,000, Portsmouth on South East pay of £775.80 against £250,000.
Housing is the wider of the two gaps, with Exeter at 0.99 times the UK average house price and Portsmouth at 0.86 times.
The earnings side of the model closes most of that gap back up, which is how both land on £194.
Is Exeter dearer than Cheltenham?
Cheltenham is the dearer of the two: £194 in Exeter against £202 in Cheltenham, a £8 gap on a decorator day.
Exeter and Cheltenham both sit in the South West.
Exeter ranks 4 of the 4 towns we model there.
Why are Exeter rates below the national benchmark?
Two published statistics move the Exeter figure: South West median weekly pay of £728.70, 7 of the 11 regions on the register, and a local average house price of £287,000, 13 of the 30 towns.
Together they put Exeter £6 under the £200 national decorator benchmark.
That is 3.0 percent down.
Can I use these Exeter figures as a quote?
No. £194 is a modelled town figure, and the modelled range beside it, £146 to £252, is arithmetic on that figure rather than a measurement of Exeter jobs.
16 of the 17 Exeter 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 Exeter rows, £136 to £272. Each row carries its own provenance, so a modelled Exeter figure can never be read as a sourced one.
Download · CSVexeter.csvOne row per trade, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, Exeter day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/day-rates/exeter/
Embed this figure
The Exeter 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/exeter/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/day-rates-exeter.png" alt="Day rates for 17 trades in Exeter, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The Exeter 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.