National rank
30 of 30
29 towns model higher than this one.
Sunderland is the floor. No town we cover models cheaper.
£160 for a decorator day, £75 under Guildford for the same day of work.
Modelled from two published statistics, North East median weekly pay of £681.20 and Sunderland housing at £145,000, both sourced 5 July 2026 and cross checked further down this page.
How Sunderland compares with the other 29
30 towns, one axis. Sunderland is the marked tick, at £160 on a rail running from £160 in Sunderland up to £235 in Guildford, which puts it £40 below the drawn £200 benchmark.
Sunderland £160
£200 benchmark
Everything on this axis sits above Sunderland, up to £235 in Guildford.
Sunderland's marker is the decorator rate.
It is the trade the model anchors on, and the other 16 move with the same multiplier, from £112 for general labourer work to £224 for electrician work.
Regional rank
2 of 2
Against the 2 towns we model in the North East.
Versus benchmark
£40 down
20.0 percent below the £200 national decorator benchmark.
What 17 trades charge in Sunderland
17 trades, one town. A Sunderland day runs from £112 for general labourer up to £224 for electrician, which is a £112 span on what is otherwise the same working day, priced through North East earnings.
Every one of the 17 is the same 20 percent down on Sunderland geography, because one multiplier built from the North East pay and Sunderland house prices moves all of them together.
| Trade | Day rate | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|
| Electrician£56 below the £280 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £224 | |
| Plumber£54 below the £270 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £216 | |
| Bricklayer£52 below the £260 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £208 | |
| Gas and Heating Engineer£52 below the £259 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £207 | |
| General Builder£51 below the £253 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £202 | |
| Carpenter and joiner£48 below the £240 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £192 | |
| Roofer£48 below the £239 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £191 | |
| Plasterer£46 below the £230 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £184 | |
| Tiler£46 below the £229 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £183 | |
| Drainage Engineer£45 below the £225 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £180 | |
| Decorative Plasterer£45 below the £225 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £180 | |
| GroundworkerModelled only£43 below the £213 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £170 | |
| Painter and decorator£40 below the £200 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £160 | |
| Handyman£38 below the £188 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £150 | |
| Cladding Installer£35 below the £175 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £140 | |
| Suspended Ceiling Installer£35 below the £175 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £140 | |
| General Labourer£28 below the £140 benchmark on Sunderland geography. | £112 |
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 Sunderland 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 Sunderland 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 Sunderland, so the next step is pricing one of your own jobs there.
The Rate Sorted calculator opens already set to Sunderland, so your own costs go in and a Sunderland rate you can quote with comes out.
How long the work takes in Sunderland
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 Sunderland rates can be multiplied out.
A decorating job in Sunderland comes to £320 to £640, on the 30th dearest day rate of the 30 towns on this site.
decorating in Sunderland
£320 to £640
A painter and decorator day in Sunderland models at £160, 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 Sunderland
£202 to £313
A plasterer day in Sunderland models at £184, 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 Sunderland
£458 to £586
A tiler day in Sunderland models at £183, 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 Sunderland 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 Sunderland measurement.
Why Sunderland prices as it does
Sunderland is cheap to hire because it is cheap to live in, not because the work is easier.
£145,000
The average house price, against £291,000 across the UK.
£681.20
The North East median weekly pay Sunderland is modelled on, 11.1 percent below the UK median of £766.60.
0.50x
Property against the UK average, 50 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 Sunderland 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 Sunderland charged for a day of work; what they show is why Sunderland lands where it does.
North East WEEKLY PAY
£681.20
Sunderland is modelled on the North East median for full time work, according to ONS ASHE April 2025.It is 11.1 percent below the UK median of £766.60 a week, and Sunderland models at £160 a decorator day on it.North East ranks 11 of the 11 regions on the register, and Sunderland is 2 of the 2 North East towns we model on it.
Sunderland HOUSE PRICES
£145,000
The Sunderland average, data from the ONS local housing price pages, April 2026 provisional.That is 0.50 times the UK average of £291,000, per the UK House Price Index.The cheapest housing of the 30 towns we cover.
Sunderland questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word, and every figure in them is a Sunderland figure printed above.
What is a typical day rate in Sunderland?
A decorator day in Sunderland models at £160.
That is number 30 of the 30 towns on this site.
Across the 17 trades a Sunderland day runs from £112 for general labourer work up to £224 for electrician work, every one of them modelled on North East earnings and Sunderland house prices.
Which trade charges the most per day in Sunderland?
Electrician, at £224 a day.
General Labourer work is the cheapest of the 17, at £112.
That leaves a £112 span for the same working day in the same town, and it happens because every trade carries its own national benchmark before any Sunderland geography is applied to it.
Is Sunderland dearer than Newcastle?
Newcastle is the dearer of the two: £160 in Sunderland against £173 in Newcastle, a £13 gap on a decorator day.
Sunderland and Newcastle both sit in the North East.
Sunderland ranks 2 of the 2 towns we model there.
Why are Sunderland rates below the national benchmark?
Two published statistics move the Sunderland figure: North East median weekly pay of £681.20, 11 of the 11 regions on the register, and a local average house price of £145,000, 30 of the 30 towns.
Together they put Sunderland £40 under the £200 national decorator benchmark.
That is 20.0 percent down.
Can I use these Sunderland figures as a quote?
No. £160 is a modelled town figure, and the modelled range beside it, £120 to £208, is arithmetic on that figure rather than a measurement of Sunderland jobs.
16 of the 17 Sunderland 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 Sunderland rows, £112 to £224. Each row carries its own provenance, so a modelled Sunderland figure can never be read as a sourced one.
Download · CSVsunderland.csvOne row per trade, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, Sunderland day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/day-rates/sunderland/
Embed this figure
The Sunderland 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/sunderland/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/day-rates-sunderland.png" alt="Day rates for 17 trades in Sunderland, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The Sunderland 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.