National benchmark
£280
A modelled benchmark, published beside the guide spread rather than derived from it.
Our benchmark for an electrician is £280 a day.
Published UK price guides put electricians between £150 and £500, checked 30 September 2026.
Sources: Checkatrade, MyBuilder, MyJobQuote, HaMuch, CostEstimator and PriceYourJob (2025 guide).
Electrician rates across 30 towns
Ranked by modelled electrician day rate, built the way the method band below sets out. The modelled range beside each town is drawn to one shared scale, so two electrician towns can be read straight off against each other.
Showing all 30 towns.
No town on this page matches that. All 30 are in the table, and the town index explains which towns are not modelled and why.
| # | Town | Rate | vs £280 | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GuildfordSouth East£247 to £428 | £329 | £49 above | |
| 2 | OxfordSouth East£240 to £416 | £320 | £40 above | |
| 3 | CambridgeEast of England£237 to £411 | £316 | £36 above | |
| 4 | BrightonSouth East£230 to £399 | £307 | £27 above | |
| 5 | BathSouth West£223 to £386 | £297 | £17 above | |
| 6 | ReadingSouth East£221 to £384 | £295 | £15 above | |
| 7 | BristolSouth West£216 to £374 | £288 | £8 above | |
| 8 | Milton KeynesSouth East£216 to £374 | £288 | £8 above | |
| 9 | CheltenhamSouth West£212 to £368 | £283 | £3 above | |
| 10 | EdinburghScotland£212 to £367 | £282 | £2 above | |
| 11 | YorkYorkshire£205 to £355 | £273 | £7 below | |
| 12 | ExeterSouth West£204 to £354 | £272 | £8 below | |
| 13 | PortsmouthSouth East£203 to £352 | £271 | £9 below | |
| 14 | NorthamptonEast Midlands£202 to £350 | £269 | £11 below | |
| 15 | SouthamptonSouth East£201 to £348 | £268 | £12 below | |
| 16 | CardiffWales£198 to £343 | £264 | £16 below | |
| 17 | NorwichEast of England£198 to £343 | £264 | £16 below | |
| 18 | ManchesterNorth West£197 to £342 | £263 | £17 below | |
| 19 | BirminghamWest Midlands£195 to £338 | £260 | £20 below | |
| 20 | LeedsYorkshire£194 to £337 | £259 | £21 below | |
| 21 | LeicesterEast Midlands£191 to £330 | £254 | £26 below | |
| 22 | CoventryWest Midlands£191 to £330 | £254 | £26 below | |
| 23 | GlasgowScotland£190 to £329 | £253 | £27 below | |
| 24 | SheffieldYorkshire£189 to £328 | £252 | £28 below | |
| 25 | DerbyEast Midlands£185 to £320 | £246 | £34 below | |
| 26 | LiverpoolNorth West£184 to £319 | £245 | £35 below | |
| 27 | NewcastleNorth East£182 to £316 | £243 | £37 below | |
| 28 | NottinghamEast Midlands£182 to £316 | £243 | £37 below | |
| 29 | Stoke-on-TrentWest Midlands£176 to £306 | £235 | £45 below | |
| 30 | SunderlandNorth East£168 to £291 | £224 | £56 below |
Read the rangeEvery range spans the same fraction of its own town rate, 0.75 to 1.30, so a higher priced town shows a wider one.That extra width is arithmetic and not evidence, because the range is a fixed rule rather than a measurement.
- Scale every bar drawn on £160 to £430
- Range the modelled range, the rate x 0.75 and x 1.30
Your next step
You have the £280 electrician benchmark, so the next step is an electrician rate that covers your own costs.
Put in the take home you want, your van and your insurance, and the Rate Sorted calculator turns them into your own electrician day rate, ready to price a job with.
Highest town
£329
Guildford, the biggest premium over the benchmark in the 30.
Cheapest town
£224
Sunderland, £56 under the benchmark and the floor of the table.
Published guide spread
£150 to £500
What 6 named guides publish for electricians, checked 30 September 2026.
Hiring an electrician?
An electrician quote between £150 and £500 a day is inside what the UK guides publish, and £280 is the benchmark this site models from.
Quoting as an electrician?
£280 puts electricians at the top of the 17 trades on this site, between £140 for general labourer work and £280 for electrician.
How the 30 towns spread out
Every town on one axis, marked against £280. It shows where the weight of the electrician table sits, and how far each end has travelled from that benchmark.
£280 benchmark
Guildford £329
Sunderland sits at the other end, on £224.
That is a £105 span across the 30 towns for one day of the same work, and because every trade page on this site draws its rail on the identical £160 to £430 scale, electricians can be laid over any other trade here and read tick for tick.
Half the table sits here
17 of the 30 towns fall between £253 and £288. Read that middle £35 band first when an electrician quote needs a quick sanity check against somewhere of a similar size.
Above the benchmark
10 towns clear £280, and 9 of those are in the South East, South West or East of England.
How each town figure is built
Three inputs, in this order, and nothing else goes in.
- 01The trade benchmark, £280Stated and sourced at the top of this page. Nothing on this page works it out again.
- 02A geography multiplier, trade neutralOne multiplier per town, built from earnings data from the ONS and local house prices, applied to every trade the same way.
- 03A modelled range of 0.75 and 1.30Low and high are the town's own modelled rate multiplied by 0.75 and by 1.30, never the benchmark.
Rate estimates blend a national electrician day rate benchmark, checked against dated UK trade price guides, with official ONS regional earnings and local house price data.
Figures are modelled estimates for guidance, not quotes.
Sources: ONS ASHE 2025, UK House Price Index April 2026.
Nothing on this page is a survey of what electricians charged.
The full working behind every electrician figure, with each source dated, is on the methodology page.
Which regions pay the most
The median of the towns we cover in each region, which means a region with one town in it is that one town. London has no modelled town yet, so it does not appear.
South East7 towns covered, £268 to £329£295
East of England2 towns covered, £264 to £316£290
South West4 towns covered, £272 to £297£286
Scotland2 towns covered, £253 to £282£268
Wales1 town covered, £264 to £264£264
Yorkshire3 towns covered, £252 to £273£259
North West2 towns covered, £245 to £263£254
West Midlands3 towns covered, £235 to £260£254
East Midlands4 towns covered, £243 to £269£250
North East2 towns covered, £224 to £243£234
The spread is the story
A Guildford day and a Sunderland day are the same electrician work at a £105 difference.
How the £280 is set, and what checks it
The first card is the spread published according to the named UK price guides. The rest are independent checks that never fed the £280.
What the guides publish
£150 to £500
6 named UK price guides publish an electrician day rate.Between them they run from £150 to £500, and the £280 benchmark sits inside that.It is the figure the benchmark is published beside; the cards after it are the tests.
Checkatrade, MyBuilder, MyJobQuote, HaMuch, CostEstimator and PriceYourJob (2025 guide), checked 30 September 2026
Office for National Statistics
£777
The Office for National Statistics puts electrician pay at £777 a week (2025 pay survey).
ONS ASHE 2025 provisional, employee earnings, not a charge out rate · ASHE Table 14
Hudson Contract, what firms pay
£1,211
Hudson Contract, which tracks what firms pay trades, has electrical work at £1,211 a week, about £242 a day.
Hudson Contract, subcontractor payroll, England and Wales, three year average, July 2023 to June 2026
Electrician wages and pay rates
What electricians are paid is a different measurement from the £280 a customer is charged, and both are on this page.
Paid as an employee
£777 a week
That is the ONS median for electricians employed on a payroll, under SOC 5241.It is a wage before tax, not a rate anybody quotes a customer.
Paid as a subcontractor
£242 a day
Hudson Contract paid £1,211 a week on its electrical series, which is £242 over five days.this trade, published by Hudson under its own name
Employed, starter to experienced
£26,000 to £45,000 a year
The National Careers Service electrician profile prints both salaries, read 3 October 2026.They are employee salaries before tax, not the £280 a customer pays for a day.
By JIB grade
Technician: £22.70 an hourApproved Electrician: £20.08 an hourElectrician: £18.38 an hourApprentice, stage 4: £14.03 an hourApprentice, stage 1: £8.16 an hourJIB, employed hourly rates, transport provided, from 5 January 2026, dated June 2025.
What tradespeople earn sets electricians beside the other 16 trades, sourced 5 September 2026.
Pricing a short job rather than a full day, the £280 works out at £40.00 an hour on the working day this site assumes, which is ours rather than a published figure.
What the trades charge an hour sets that against the hourly range the price guides publish for electricians, and names the day it divides by.
Against the decorator benchmark
Decorators benchmark at £200 a day on this site.
Electrical work comes in £80 over that figure.
- Electrician benchmark
- £280
- Painter and decorator benchmark
- £200
- Gap at the benchmark
- £80 over
Common questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word.
How much does an electrician charge per day in the UK?
Our benchmark for an electrician is £280 a day.
Published UK price guides put electricians between £150 and £500, checked 30 September 2026.
Sources: Checkatrade, MyBuilder, MyJobQuote, HaMuch, CostEstimator and PriceYourJob (2025 guide).
Across the 30 modelled towns the figure runs from £224 in Sunderland to £329 in Guildford.
Does the electrician day rate include materials or VAT?
No.
The £280 is one full working day of electrician labour, before materials and VAT.
Why do electrician rates differ between towns?
The £280 benchmark is spread town by town with ONS regional earnings (ASHE 2025) and local house prices (UK House Price Index, April 2026).
That is what puts £329 on Guildford and £224 on Sunderland.
That is a £105 gap across the 30 towns for the same day of electrician work.
What is the electrician pay rate in the UK?
The electrician pay rate depends on who is paying it.
Employed on a payroll, electricians earn an ONS median of £777 a week, under SOC 5241.
For electricians paid as subcontractors instead, the Hudson Contract figure is its electrical series at £1,211 a week, which works out at about £242 a day over a five day week.
That is a true electrician series.
Neither is the £280 a electrician charges a customer.
Take the data
Every figure on this page is in the file, with the same sources and the same date.
Download · CSVelectrician-day-rates.csv30 rows, one per town, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, Electrician day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/electrician-day-rates/
Embed this figure
The electrician card carries the benchmark and the date, and the link goes to this page.
<a href="https://thedayrate.co.uk/electrician-day-rates/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/electrician-day-rates.png" alt="Electrician day rates in 30 UK towns, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The electrician figures are free to use in an article, a fact check or a quote, and a credit with a link back is all we ask, under CC BY 4.0.
Quoting electrician work yourself?The £280 electrician benchmark beside every other trade on this site, read from the side of the person sending the invoice.What should I chargeWeighing up an electrician quote?A £280 electrician day multiplied by the day count is the sum behind a whole job price.Day rate or price per job
The full guide index carries all 12, including the ones that turn the electrician day rate into a job price.
None of the 30 towns modelled above is London, where this site publishes no electrician rate of its own and prints what the named guides publish instead.