National rank
1 of 30
The highest modelled decorator rate of every town we cover.
Guildford is the ceiling. No town we cover models higher.
£235 for a decorator day, £75 clear of Sunderland at the other end of the 30.
Modelled from two published statistics, South East median weekly pay of £775.80 and Guildford housing at £525,000, both sourced 5 July 2026 and cross checked further down this page.
How Guildford compares with the other 29
30 towns, one axis. Guildford is the marked tick, at £235 on a rail running from £160 in Sunderland up to £235 in Guildford, which puts it £35 above the drawn £200 benchmark.
Guildford £235
£200 benchmark
Everything on this axis sits below Guildford, down to £160 in Sunderland.
Guildford's marker is the decorator rate.
It is the trade the model anchors on, and the other 16 move with the same multiplier, from £165 for general labourer work to £329 for electrician work.
Regional rank
1 of 7
Against the 7 towns we model in the South East.
Versus benchmark
£35 up
17.5 percent above the £200 national decorator benchmark.
What 17 trades charge in Guildford
17 trades, one town. A Guildford day runs from £165 for general labourer up to £329 for electrician, which is a £164 span on what is otherwise the same working day, priced through South East earnings.
Every one of the 17 is the same 17 to 18 percent up on Guildford geography, because one multiplier built from the South East pay and Guildford house prices moves all of them together.
| Trade | Day rate | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|
| Electrician£49 above the £280 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £329 | |
| Plumber£48 above the £270 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £318 | |
| Bricklayer£46 above the £260 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £306 | |
| Gas and Heating Engineer£46 above the £259 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £305 | |
| General Builder£45 above the £253 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £298 | |
| Carpenter and joiner£42 above the £240 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £282 | |
| Roofer£42 above the £239 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £281 | |
| Plasterer£41 above the £230 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £271 | |
| Tiler£40 above the £229 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £269 | |
| Drainage Engineer£40 above the £225 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £265 | |
| Decorative Plasterer£40 above the £225 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £265 | |
| GroundworkerModelled only£38 above the £213 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £251 | |
| Painter and decorator£35 above the £200 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £235 | |
| Handyman£33 above the £188 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £221 | |
| Cladding Installer£31 above the £175 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £206 | |
| Suspended Ceiling Installer£31 above the £175 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £206 | |
| General Labourer£25 above the £140 benchmark on Guildford geography. | £165 |
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 Guildford 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 Guildford 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 Guildford, so the next step is pricing one of your own jobs there.
The Rate Sorted calculator opens already set to Guildford, so your own costs go in and a Guildford rate you can quote with comes out.
How long the work takes in Guildford
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 Guildford rates can be multiplied out.
A decorating job in Guildford comes to £470 to £940, on the 1st dearest day rate of the 30 towns on this site.
decorating in Guildford
£470 to £940
A painter and decorator day in Guildford models at £235, 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 Guildford
£298 to £461
A plasterer day in Guildford models at £271, 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 Guildford
£673 to £861
A tiler day in Guildford models at £269, 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 Guildford 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 Guildford measurement.
Why Guildford prices as it does
Nothing about Guildford is average, and the model reads both halves of that.
£525,000
The average house price, against £291,000 across the UK.
£775.80
The South East median weekly pay Guildford is modelled on, 1.2 percent above the UK median of £766.60.
1.80x
Property against the UK average, 80 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 Guildford 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 Guildford charged for a day of work; what they show is why Guildford lands where it does.
South East WEEKLY PAY
£775.80
Guildford is modelled on the South East median for full time work, according to ONS ASHE April 2025.It is 1.2 percent above the UK median of £766.60 a week, and Guildford models at £235 a decorator day on it.South East ranks 2 of the 11 regions on the register, and Guildford is 1 of the 7 South East towns we model on it.
Guildford HOUSE PRICES
£525,000
The Guildford average, data from the ONS local housing price pages, April 2026 provisional.That is 1.80 times the UK average of £291,000, per the UK House Price Index.The most expensive housing of the 30 towns we cover.
Guildford questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word, and every figure in them is a Guildford figure printed above.
What is a typical day rate in Guildford?
A decorator day in Guildford models at £235.
That is number 1 of the 30 towns on this site.
Across the 17 trades a Guildford day runs from £165 for general labourer work up to £329 for electrician work, every one of them modelled on South East earnings and Guildford house prices.
Which trade charges the most per day in Guildford?
Electrician, at £329 a day.
General Labourer work is the cheapest of the 17, at £165.
That leaves a £164 span for the same working day in the same town, and it happens because every trade carries its own national benchmark before any Guildford geography is applied to it.
Is Guildford dearer than Oxford?
Guildford is the dearer of the two: £235 in Guildford against £229 in Oxford, a £6 gap on a decorator day.
Guildford and Oxford both sit in the South East.
Guildford ranks 1 of the 7 towns we model there.
Why are Guildford rates above the national benchmark?
Two published statistics move the Guildford figure: South East median weekly pay of £775.80, 2 of the 11 regions on the register, and a local average house price of £525,000, 1 of the 30 towns.
Together they put Guildford £35 over the £200 national decorator benchmark.
That is 17.5 percent up.
Can I use these Guildford figures as a quote?
No. £235 is a modelled town figure, and the modelled range beside it, £176 to £306, is arithmetic on that figure rather than a measurement of Guildford jobs.
16 of the 17 Guildford 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 Guildford rows, £165 to £329. Each row carries its own provenance, so a modelled Guildford figure can never be read as a sourced one.
Download · CSVguildford.csvOne row per trade, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, Guildford day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/day-rates/guildford/
Embed this figure
The Guildford 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/guildford/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/day-rates-guildford.png" alt="Day rates for 17 trades in Guildford, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The Guildford 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.