National benchmark
£213
A modelled benchmark, with nothing published to set it beside.
Our benchmark for a groundworker is £213 a day.
This is a modelled benchmark: no UK price guide publishes a comparable groundworker day rate, so there is no directory comparison to show.
Checked 30 September 2026.
Groundworker rates across 30 towns
Ranked by modelled groundworker 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 groundworker 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 £213 | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GuildfordSouth East£188 to £326 | £251 | £38 above | |
| 2 | OxfordSouth East£183 to £317 | £244 | £31 above | |
| 3 | CambridgeEast of England£180 to £312 | £240 | £27 above | |
| 4 | BrightonSouth East£176 to £304 | £234 | £21 above | |
| 5 | BathSouth West£170 to £294 | £226 | £13 above | |
| 6 | ReadingSouth East£168 to £291 | £224 | £11 above | |
| 7 | BristolSouth West£164 to £285 | £219 | £6 above | |
| 8 | Milton KeynesSouth East£164 to £285 | £219 | £6 above | |
| 9 | CheltenhamSouth West£162 to £281 | £216 | £3 above | |
| 10 | EdinburghScotland£161 to £280 | £215 | £2 above | |
| 11 | YorkYorkshire£156 to £270 | £208 | £5 below | |
| 12 | ExeterSouth West£155 to £269 | £207 | £6 below | |
| 13 | PortsmouthSouth East£155 to £268 | £206 | £7 below | |
| 14 | NorthamptonEast Midlands£153 to £265 | £204 | £9 below | |
| 15 | SouthamptonSouth East£153 to £265 | £204 | £9 below | |
| 16 | CardiffWales£151 to £261 | £201 | £12 below | |
| 17 | NorwichEast of England£151 to £261 | £201 | £12 below | |
| 18 | ManchesterNorth West£150 to £260 | £200 | £13 below | |
| 19 | BirminghamWest Midlands£149 to £257 | £198 | £15 below | |
| 20 | LeedsYorkshire£148 to £256 | £197 | £16 below | |
| 21 | LeicesterEast Midlands£145 to £251 | £193 | £20 below | |
| 22 | CoventryWest Midlands£145 to £251 | £193 | £20 below | |
| 23 | GlasgowScotland£144 to £250 | £192 | £21 below | |
| 24 | SheffieldYorkshire£144 to £250 | £192 | £21 below | |
| 25 | DerbyEast Midlands£140 to £243 | £187 | £26 below | |
| 26 | LiverpoolNorth West£140 to £242 | £186 | £27 below | |
| 27 | NewcastleNorth East£139 to £241 | £185 | £28 below | |
| 28 | NottinghamEast Midlands£139 to £241 | £185 | £28 below | |
| 29 | Stoke-on-TrentWest Midlands£134 to £233 | £179 | £34 below | |
| 30 | SunderlandNorth East£128 to £221 | £170 | £43 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 £120 to £330
- Range the modelled range, the rate x 0.75 and x 1.30
Your next step
You have the £213 groundworker benchmark, so the next step is a groundworker 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 groundworker day rate, ready to price a job with.
Highest town
£251
Guildford, the biggest premium over the benchmark in the 30.
Cheapest town
£170
Sunderland, £43 under the benchmark and the floor of the table.
Published guide spread
None published
No UK price guide publishes a comparable groundworker day rate. Checked 30 September 2026.
Hiring a groundworker?
No UK price guide publishes a comparable groundworker day rate, so £213 is a modelled benchmark and there is no published spread to check a quote against.
Quoting as a groundworker?
£213 puts groundworkers 12 of 17 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 £213. It shows where the weight of the groundworker table sits, and how far each end has travelled from that benchmark.
£213 benchmark
Guildford £251
Sunderland sits at the other end, on £170.
That is a £81 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 £120 to £330 scale, groundworkers can be laid over any other trade here and read tick for tick.
Half the table sits here
18 of the 30 towns fall between £192 and £219. Read that middle £27 band first when a groundworker quote needs a quick sanity check against somewhere of a similar size.
Above the benchmark
10 towns clear £213, 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, £213Stated 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 groundworker 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 groundworkers charged.
The full working behind every groundworker 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, £204 to £251£224
East of England2 towns covered, £201 to £240£221
South West4 towns covered, £207 to £226£218
Scotland2 towns covered, £192 to £215£204
Wales1 town covered, £201 to £201£201
Yorkshire3 towns covered, £192 to £208£197
North West2 towns covered, £186 to £200£193
West Midlands3 towns covered, £179 to £198£193
East Midlands4 towns covered, £185 to £204£190
North East2 towns covered, £170 to £185£178
The spread is the story
A Guildford day and a Sunderland day are the same groundworker work at a £81 difference.
How the £213 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 £213.
No guide publishes this trade
Modelled
No UK price guide publishes a comparable groundworker day rate, so there is nothing to compare this figure against.It is a modelled benchmark, built from the same regional earnings and house price data as every other town figure on this site.We are not going to invent a range to fill the gap.
Checked 30 September 2026
Office for National Statistics
£718
The Office for National Statistics puts groundworker pay at £718 a week (2025 pay survey).
ONS ASHE 2025 provisional, employee earnings, not a charge out rate · ASHE Table 14
Hudson Contract, what firms pay
£1,021
Hudson Contract does not track groundworks on its own, so the best it offers is £1,021 a week across all trades, about £204 a day.
Hudson Contract, subcontractor payroll, England and Wales, three year average, July 2023 to June 2026
This Hudson figure is not a trade figureRead that Hudson number as a whole industry benchmark, not a groundworker rate.
Groundworker wages and pay rates
What groundworkers are paid is a different measurement from the £213 a customer is charged, and both are on this page.
Paid as an employee
£718 a week
That is the ONS median for groundworkers employed on a payroll, under SOC 9121.It is a wage before tax, not a rate anybody quotes a customer.
Paid as a subcontractor
£204 a day
Hudson Contract paid £1,021 a week on its all trades series, which is £204 over five days.ALL trades averaged together, because Hudson publishes no series for this one
What tradespeople earn sets groundworkers beside the other 16 trades, sourced 5 September 2026.
Pricing a short job rather than a full day, the £213 works out at £30.43 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 groundworkers, and names the day it divides by.
Against the decorator benchmark
Decorators benchmark at £200 a day on this site.
Groundworks comes in £13 over that figure.
- Groundworker benchmark
- £213
- Painter and decorator benchmark
- £200
- Gap at the benchmark
- £13 over
Common questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word.
How much does a groundworker charge per day in the UK?
Our benchmark for a groundworker is £213 a day.
This is a modelled benchmark: no UK price guide publishes a comparable groundworker day rate, so there is no directory comparison to show.
Checked 30 September 2026.
Across the 30 modelled towns the figure runs from £170 in Sunderland to £251 in Guildford.
Does the groundworker day rate include materials or VAT?
No.
The £213 is one full working day of groundworker labour, before materials and VAT.
Why do groundworker rates differ between towns?
The £213 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 £251 on Guildford and £170 on Sunderland.
That is a £81 gap across the 30 towns for the same day of groundworker work.
Why is there no published range for a groundworker?
No UK price guide publishes a comparable groundworker day rate, so there is nothing to compare this figure against.
It is a modelled benchmark, built from the same regional earnings and house price data as every other town figure on this site.
We are not going to invent a range to fill the gap.
What is the groundworker pay rate in the UK?
The groundworker pay rate depends on who is paying it.
Employed on a payroll, groundworkers earn an ONS median of £718 a week, under SOC 9121.
For groundworkers paid as subcontractors instead, the nearest Hudson Contract figure is its all trades series at £1,021 a week, which works out at about £204 a day over a five day week.
That is an all trades average, as Hudson has no groundworker series.
Neither is the £213 a groundworker charges a customer.
Take the data
Every figure on this page is in the file, with the same sources and the same date.
Download · CSVgroundworker-day-rates.csv30 rows, one per town, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, Groundworker day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/groundworker-day-rates/
Embed this figure
The groundworker card carries the benchmark and the date, and the link goes to this page.
<a href="https://thedayrate.co.uk/groundworker-day-rates/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/groundworker-day-rates.png" alt="Groundworker day rates in 30 UK towns, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The groundworker 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 groundworker work yourself?The £213 groundworker benchmark beside every other trade on this site, read from the side of the person sending the invoice.What should I chargeWeighing up a groundworker quote?A £213 groundworker 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 groundworker day rate into a job price.
None of the 30 towns modelled above is London, where this site publishes no groundworker rate of its own and prints what the named guides publish instead.