National rank
2 of 30
1 town model higher than this one.
Oxford models £29 over the national decorator rate.
£229 a day, 2 of 30, and 2 of 7 in South East.
Modelled from two published statistics, South East median weekly pay of £775.80 and Oxford housing at £475,000, both sourced 5 July 2026 and cross checked further down this page.
How Oxford compares with the other 29
30 towns, one axis. Oxford is the marked tick, at £229 on a rail running from £160 in Sunderland up to £235 in Guildford, which puts it £29 above the drawn £200 benchmark.
Oxford £229
£200 benchmark
Oxford sits £6 under Guildford at the top and £69 over Sunderland at the bottom.
Oxford's marker is the decorator rate.
It is the trade the model anchors on, and the other 16 move with the same multiplier, from £160 for general labourer work to £320 for electrician work.
Regional rank
2 of 7
Against the 7 towns we model in the South East.
Versus benchmark
£29 up
14.5 percent above the £200 national decorator benchmark.
What 17 trades charge in Oxford
17 trades, one town. A Oxford day runs from £160 for general labourer up to £320 for electrician, which is a £160 span on what is otherwise the same working day, priced through South East earnings.
Every one of the 17 is the same 14 to 15 percent up on Oxford geography, because one multiplier built from the South East pay and Oxford house prices moves all of them together.
| Trade | Day rate | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|
| Electrician£40 above the £280 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £320 | |
| Plumber£39 above the £270 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £309 | |
| Bricklayer£38 above the £260 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £298 | |
| Gas and Heating Engineer£37 above the £259 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £296 | |
| General Builder£37 above the £253 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £290 | |
| Carpenter and joiner£35 above the £240 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £275 | |
| Roofer£35 above the £239 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £274 | |
| Plasterer£33 above the £230 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £263 | |
| Tiler£33 above the £229 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £262 | |
| Drainage Engineer£33 above the £225 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £258 | |
| Decorative Plasterer£33 above the £225 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £258 | |
| GroundworkerModelled only£31 above the £213 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £244 | |
| Painter and decorator£29 above the £200 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £229 | |
| Handyman£27 above the £188 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £215 | |
| Cladding Installer£25 above the £175 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £200 | |
| Suspended Ceiling Installer£25 above the £175 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £200 | |
| General Labourer£20 above the £140 benchmark on Oxford geography. | £160 |
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 Oxford 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 Oxford 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 Oxford, so the next step is pricing one of your own jobs there.
The Rate Sorted calculator opens already set to Oxford, so your own costs go in and a Oxford rate you can quote with comes out.
How long the work takes in Oxford
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 Oxford rates can be multiplied out.
A decorating job in Oxford comes to £458 to £916, on the 2nd dearest day rate of the 30 towns on this site.
decorating in Oxford
£458 to £916
A painter and decorator day in Oxford models at £229, 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 Oxford
£289 to £447
A plasterer day in Oxford models at £263, 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 Oxford
£655 to £838
A tiler day in Oxford models at £262, 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 Oxford 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 Oxford measurement.
Why Oxford prices as it does
Oxford prices where its earnings and its housing put it, which is close to the middle.
£475,000
The average house price, against £291,000 across the UK.
£775.80
The South East median weekly pay Oxford is modelled on, 1.2 percent above the UK median of £766.60.
1.63x
Property against the UK average, 63 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 Oxford 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 Oxford charged for a day of work; what they show is why Oxford lands where it does.
South East WEEKLY PAY
£775.80
Oxford 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 Oxford models at £229 a decorator day on it.South East ranks 2 of the 11 regions on the register, and Oxford is 2 of the 7 South East towns we model on it.
Oxford HOUSE PRICES
£475,000
The Oxford average, data from the ONS local housing price pages, April 2026 provisional.That is 1.63 times the UK average of £291,000, per the UK House Price Index.1 of the 30 towns we cover has more expensive housing.
Oxford questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word, and every figure in them is a Oxford figure printed above.
What is a typical day rate in Oxford?
A decorator day in Oxford models at £229.
That is number 2 of the 30 towns on this site.
Across the 17 trades a Oxford day runs from £160 for general labourer work up to £320 for electrician work, every one of them modelled on South East earnings and Oxford house prices.
Which trade charges the most per day in Oxford?
Electrician, at £320 a day.
General Labourer work is the cheapest of the 17, at £160.
That leaves a £160 span for the same working day in the same town, and it happens because every trade carries its own national benchmark before any Oxford geography is applied to it.
Is Oxford dearer than Guildford?
Guildford is the dearer of the two: £229 in Oxford against £235 in Guildford, a £6 gap on a decorator day.
Oxford and Guildford both sit in the South East.
Oxford ranks 2 of the 7 towns we model there.
Why are Oxford rates above the national benchmark?
Two published statistics move the Oxford figure: South East median weekly pay of £775.80, 2 of the 11 regions on the register, and a local average house price of £475,000, 2 of the 30 towns.
Together they put Oxford £29 over the £200 national decorator benchmark.
That is 14.5 percent up.
Can I use these Oxford figures as a quote?
No. £229 is a modelled town figure, and the modelled range beside it, £172 to £298, is arithmetic on that figure rather than a measurement of Oxford jobs.
16 of the 17 Oxford 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 Oxford rows, £160 to £320. Each row carries its own provenance, so a modelled Oxford figure can never be read as a sourced one.
Download · CSVoxford.csvOne row per trade, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, Oxford day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/day-rates/oxford/
Embed this figure
The Oxford 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/oxford/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/day-rates-oxford.png" alt="Day rates for 17 trades in Oxford, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The Oxford 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.