National rank
6 of 30
5 towns model higher than this one.
Reading models £10 over the national decorator rate.
£210 a day, 6 of 30, and 4 of 7 in South East.
Modelled from two published statistics, South East median weekly pay of £775.80 and Reading housing at £345,000, both sourced 5 July 2026 and cross checked further down this page.
How Reading compares with the other 29
30 towns, one axis. Reading is the marked tick, at £210 on a rail running from £160 in Sunderland up to £235 in Guildford, which puts it £10 above the drawn £200 benchmark.
Reading £210
£200 benchmark
Reading sits £25 under Guildford at the top and £50 over Sunderland at the bottom.
Reading's marker is the decorator rate.
It is the trade the model anchors on, and the other 16 move with the same multiplier, from £147 for general labourer work to £295 for electrician work.
Regional rank
4 of 7
Against the 7 towns we model in the South East.
Versus benchmark
£10 up
5.0 percent above the £200 national decorator benchmark.
What 17 trades charge in Reading
17 trades, one town. A Reading day runs from £147 for general labourer up to £295 for electrician, which is a £148 span on what is otherwise the same working day, priced through South East earnings.
Every one of the 17 is the same 5 percent up on Reading geography, because one multiplier built from the South East pay and Reading house prices moves all of them together.
| Trade | Day rate | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|
| Electrician£15 above the £280 benchmark on Reading geography. | £295 | |
| Plumber£14 above the £270 benchmark on Reading geography. | £284 | |
| Bricklayer£14 above the £260 benchmark on Reading geography. | £274 | |
| Gas and Heating Engineer£14 above the £259 benchmark on Reading geography. | £273 | |
| General Builder£13 above the £253 benchmark on Reading geography. | £266 | |
| Carpenter and joiner£13 above the £240 benchmark on Reading geography. | £253 | |
| Roofer£12 above the £239 benchmark on Reading geography. | £251 | |
| Plasterer£12 above the £230 benchmark on Reading geography. | £242 | |
| Tiler£12 above the £229 benchmark on Reading geography. | £241 | |
| Drainage Engineer£12 above the £225 benchmark on Reading geography. | £237 | |
| Decorative Plasterer£12 above the £225 benchmark on Reading geography. | £237 | |
| GroundworkerModelled only£11 above the £213 benchmark on Reading geography. | £224 | |
| Painter and decorator£10 above the £200 benchmark on Reading geography. | £210 | |
| Handyman£10 above the £188 benchmark on Reading geography. | £198 | |
| Cladding Installer£9 above the £175 benchmark on Reading geography. | £184 | |
| Suspended Ceiling Installer£9 above the £175 benchmark on Reading geography. | £184 | |
| General Labourer£7 above the £140 benchmark on Reading geography. | £147 |
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 Reading 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 Reading 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 Reading, so the next step is pricing one of your own jobs there.
The Rate Sorted calculator opens already set to Reading, so your own costs go in and a Reading rate you can quote with comes out.
How long the work takes in Reading
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 Reading rates can be multiplied out.
A decorating job in Reading comes to £420 to £840, on the 6th dearest day rate of the 30 towns on this site.
decorating in Reading
£420 to £840
A painter and decorator day in Reading models at £210, 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 Reading
£266 to £411
A plasterer day in Reading models at £242, 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 Reading
£603 to £771
A tiler day in Reading models at £241, 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 Reading 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 Reading measurement.
Why Reading prices as it does
Reading prices where its earnings and its housing put it, which is close to the middle.
£345,000
The average house price, against £291,000 across the UK.
£775.80
The South East median weekly pay Reading is modelled on, 1.2 percent above the UK median of £766.60.
1.19x
Property against the UK average, 19 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 Reading 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 Reading charged for a day of work; what they show is why Reading lands where it does.
South East WEEKLY PAY
£775.80
Reading 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 Reading models at £210 a decorator day on it.South East ranks 2 of the 11 regions on the register, and Reading is 4 of the 7 South East towns we model on it.
Reading HOUSE PRICES
£345,000
The Reading average, data from the ONS local housing price pages, April 2026 provisional.That is 1.19 times the UK average of £291,000, per the UK House Price Index.6 of the 30 towns we cover have more expensive housing.
Reading questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word, and every figure in them is a Reading figure printed above.
What is a typical day rate in Reading?
A decorator day in Reading models at £210.
That is number 6 of the 30 towns on this site.
Across the 17 trades a Reading day runs from £147 for general labourer work up to £295 for electrician work, every one of them modelled on South East earnings and Reading house prices.
Which trade charges the most per day in Reading?
Electrician, at £295 a day.
General Labourer work is the cheapest of the 17, at £147.
That leaves a £148 span for the same working day in the same town, and it happens because every trade carries its own national benchmark before any Reading geography is applied to it.
Is Reading dearer than Milton Keynes?
Reading is the dearer of the two: £210 in Reading against £206 in Milton Keynes, a £4 gap on a decorator day.
Reading and Milton Keynes both sit in the South East.
Reading ranks 4 of the 7 towns we model there.
Why are Reading rates above the national benchmark?
Two published statistics move the Reading figure: South East median weekly pay of £775.80, 2 of the 11 regions on the register, and a local average house price of £345,000, 7 of the 30 towns.
Together they put Reading £10 over the £200 national decorator benchmark.
That is 5.0 percent up.
Can I use these Reading figures as a quote?
No. £210 is a modelled town figure, and the modelled range beside it, £158 to £273, is arithmetic on that figure rather than a measurement of Reading jobs.
16 of the 17 Reading 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 Reading rows, £147 to £295. Each row carries its own provenance, so a modelled Reading figure can never be read as a sourced one.
Download · CSVreading.csvOne row per trade, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, Reading day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/day-rates/reading/
Embed this figure
The Reading 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/reading/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/day-rates-reading.png" alt="Day rates for 17 trades in Reading, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The Reading 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.