National rank
13 of 30
12 towns model higher than this one.
£194 in Portsmouth, and Exeter lands on the same figure.
South East pay of £775.80 a week on £250,000 housing gets there.
Exeter gets there on South West pay of £728.70 and £287,000.
Modelled from two published statistics, South East median weekly pay of £775.80 and Portsmouth housing at £250,000, both sourced 5 July 2026 and cross checked further down this page.
How Portsmouth compares with the other 29
30 towns, one axis. Portsmouth 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.
Portsmouth £194
£200 benchmark
Portsmouth sits £41 under Guildford at the top and £34 over Sunderland at the bottom.
One other town shares that mark: Exeter, also £194.
Portsmouth'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 £271 for electrician work.
Regional rank
6 of 7
Against the 7 towns we model in the South East.
Versus benchmark
£6 down
3.0 percent below the £200 national decorator benchmark.
What 17 trades charge in Portsmouth
17 trades, one town. A Portsmouth day runs from £136 for general labourer up to £271 for electrician, which is a £135 span on what is otherwise the same working day, priced through South East earnings.
Every one of the 17 is the same 3 percent down on Portsmouth geography, because one multiplier built from the South East pay and Portsmouth house prices moves all of them together.
| Trade | Day rate | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|
| Electrician£9 below the £280 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £271 | |
| Plumber£9 below the £270 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £261 | |
| Bricklayer£8 below the £260 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £252 | |
| Gas and Heating Engineer£8 below the £259 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £251 | |
| General Builder£8 below the £253 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £245 | |
| Carpenter and joiner£8 below the £240 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £232 | |
| Roofer£8 below the £239 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £231 | |
| Plasterer£7 below the £230 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £223 | |
| Tiler£7 below the £229 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £222 | |
| Drainage Engineer£7 below the £225 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £218 | |
| Decorative Plasterer£7 below the £225 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £218 | |
| GroundworkerModelled only£7 below the £213 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £206 | |
| Painter and decorator£6 below the £200 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £194 | |
| Handyman£6 below the £188 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £182 | |
| Cladding Installer£6 below the £175 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £169 | |
| Suspended Ceiling Installer£6 below the £175 benchmark on Portsmouth geography. | £169 | |
| General Labourer£4 below the £140 benchmark on Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth, so the next step is pricing one of your own jobs there.
The Rate Sorted calculator opens already set to Portsmouth, so your own costs go in and a Portsmouth rate you can quote with comes out.
How long the work takes in Portsmouth
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 Portsmouth rates can be multiplied out.
A decorating job in Portsmouth comes to £388 to £776, on the 13th dearest day rate of the 30 towns on this site.
decorating in Portsmouth
£388 to £776
A painter and decorator day in Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth
£245 to £379
A plasterer day in Portsmouth models at £223, 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 Portsmouth
£555 to £710
A tiler day in Portsmouth models at £222, 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 Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth measurement.The same 3 jobs come to the same money in Exeter, which reaches £194 a decorator day on £287,000 housing and South West pay of £728.70.
Why Portsmouth prices as it does
Portsmouth reaches £194 by a different route to Exeter.
£250,000
The average house price, against £291,000 across the UK.
£775.80
The South East median weekly pay Portsmouth is modelled on, 1.2 percent above the UK median of £766.60.
0.86x
Property against the UK average, 14 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 Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth charged for a day of work; what they show is why Portsmouth lands where it does.
South East WEEKLY PAY
£775.80
Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth models at £194 a decorator day on it.South East ranks 2 of the 11 regions on the register, and Portsmouth is 6 of the 7 South East towns we model on it.
Portsmouth HOUSE PRICES
£250,000
The Portsmouth average, data from the ONS local housing price pages, April 2026 provisional.That is 0.86 times the UK average of £291,000, per the UK House Price Index.14 of the 30 towns we cover have more expensive housing.
Portsmouth questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word, and every figure in them is a Portsmouth figure printed above.
What is a typical day rate in Portsmouth?
A decorator day in Portsmouth models at £194.
That is number 13 of the 30 towns on this site.
Across the 17 trades a Portsmouth day runs from £136 for general labourer work up to £271 for electrician work, every one of them modelled on South East earnings and Portsmouth house prices.
Which trade charges the most per day in Portsmouth?
Electrician, at £271 a day.
General Labourer work is the cheapest of the 17, at £136.
That leaves a £135 span for the same working day in the same town, and it happens because every trade carries its own national benchmark before any Portsmouth geography is applied to it.
Why do Portsmouth and Exeter have the same day rate?
Both model at £194 for a decorator day.
They arrive there from different places: Portsmouth on South East weekly pay of £775.80 against an average house price of £250,000, Exeter on South West pay of £728.70 against £287,000.
Housing is the wider of the two gaps, with Portsmouth at 0.86 times the UK average house price and Exeter at 0.99 times.
The earnings side of the model closes most of that gap back up, which is how both land on £194.
Is Portsmouth dearer than Southampton?
Portsmouth is the dearer of the two: £194 in Portsmouth against £191 in Southampton, a £3 gap on a decorator day.
Portsmouth and Southampton both sit in the South East.
Portsmouth ranks 6 of the 7 towns we model there.
Why are Portsmouth rates below the national benchmark?
Two published statistics move the Portsmouth figure: South East median weekly pay of £775.80, 2 of the 11 regions on the register, and a local average house price of £250,000, 15 of the 30 towns.
Together they put Portsmouth £6 under the £200 national decorator benchmark.
That is 3.0 percent down.
Can I use these Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth jobs.
16 of the 17 Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth rows, £136 to £271. Each row carries its own provenance, so a modelled Portsmouth figure can never be read as a sourced one.
Download · CSVportsmouth.csvOne row per trade, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, Portsmouth day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/day-rates/portsmouth/
Embed this figure
The Portsmouth 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/portsmouth/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/day-rates-portsmouth.png" alt="Day rates for 17 trades in Portsmouth, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The Portsmouth 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.