National benchmark
£140
A modelled benchmark, published beside the guide spread rather than derived from it.
Our benchmark for a general labourer is £140 a day.
Published UK price guides put general labourers between £100 and £360, checked 30 September 2026.
Sources: PriceYourJob (2025 guide), ConcreteMath, CostEstimator, MyBuilder and Checkatrade.
General Labourer rates across 30 towns
Ranked by modelled general labourer 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 general labourer 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 £140 | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GuildfordSouth East£124 to £215 | £165 | £25 above | |
| 2 | OxfordSouth East£120 to £208 | £160 | £20 above | |
| 3 | CambridgeEast of England£119 to £205 | £158 | £18 above | |
| 4 | BrightonSouth East£115 to £199 | £153 | £13 above | |
| 5 | BathSouth West£111 to £192 | £148 | £8 above | |
| 6 | ReadingSouth East£110 to £191 | £147 | £7 above | |
| 7 | BristolSouth West£108 to £187 | £144 | £4 above | |
| 8 | Milton KeynesSouth East£108 to £187 | £144 | £4 above | |
| 9 | CheltenhamSouth West£107 to £185 | £142 | £2 above | |
| 10 | EdinburghScotland£106 to £183 | £141 | £1 above | |
| 11 | YorkYorkshire£103 to £178 | £137 | £3 below | |
| 12 | ExeterSouth West£102 to £177 | £136 | £4 below | |
| 13 | PortsmouthSouth East£102 to £177 | £136 | £4 below | |
| 14 | NorthamptonEast Midlands£101 to £174 | £134 | £6 below | |
| 15 | SouthamptonSouth East£101 to £174 | £134 | £6 below | |
| 16 | CardiffWales£99 to £172 | £132 | £8 below | |
| 17 | NorwichEast of England£99 to £172 | £132 | £8 below | |
| 18 | ManchesterNorth West£99 to £172 | £132 | £8 below | |
| 19 | BirminghamWest Midlands£98 to £169 | £130 | £10 below | |
| 20 | LeedsYorkshire£97 to £168 | £129 | £11 below | |
| 21 | LeicesterEast Midlands£95 to £165 | £127 | £13 below | |
| 22 | CoventryWest Midlands£95 to £165 | £127 | £13 below | |
| 23 | GlasgowScotland£95 to £165 | £127 | £13 below | |
| 24 | SheffieldYorkshire£95 to £164 | £126 | £14 below | |
| 25 | DerbyEast Midlands£92 to £160 | £123 | £17 below | |
| 26 | LiverpoolNorth West£92 to £160 | £123 | £17 below | |
| 27 | NewcastleNorth East£91 to £157 | £121 | £19 below | |
| 28 | NottinghamEast Midlands£91 to £157 | £121 | £19 below | |
| 29 | Stoke-on-TrentWest Midlands£89 to £153 | £118 | £22 below | |
| 30 | SunderlandNorth East£84 to £146 | £112 | £28 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 £80 to £220
- Range the modelled range, the rate x 0.75 and x 1.30
Your next step
You have the £140 general labourer benchmark, so the next step is a general labourer 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 general labourer day rate, ready to price a job with.
Highest town
£165
Guildford, the biggest premium over the benchmark in the 30.
Cheapest town
£112
Sunderland, £28 under the benchmark and the floor of the table.
Published guide spread
£100 to £360
What 5 named guides publish for general labourers, checked 30 September 2026.
Hiring a general labourer?
A general labourer quote between £100 and £360 a day is inside what the UK guides publish, and £140 is the benchmark this site models from.
Quoting as a general labourer?
£140 puts general labourers at the foot 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 £140. It shows where the weight of the general labourer table sits, and how far each end has travelled from that benchmark.
£140 benchmark
Guildford £165
Sunderland sits at the other end, on £112.
That is a £53 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 £80 to £220 scale, general labourers 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 £127 and £144. Read that middle £17 band first when a general labourer quote needs a quick sanity check against somewhere of a similar size.
Above the benchmark
10 towns clear £140, 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, £140Stated 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 general labourer 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 general labourers charged.
The full working behind every general labourer 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, £134 to £165£147
East of England2 towns covered, £132 to £158£145
South West4 towns covered, £136 to £148£143
Scotland2 towns covered, £127 to £141£134
Wales1 town covered, £132 to £132£132
Yorkshire3 towns covered, £126 to £137£129
North West2 towns covered, £123 to £132£128
West Midlands3 towns covered, £118 to £130£127
East Midlands4 towns covered, £121 to £134£125
North East2 towns covered, £112 to £121£117
The spread is the story
A Guildford day and a Sunderland day are the same general labourer work at a £53 difference.
How the £140 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 £140.
What the guides publish
£100 to £360
5 named UK price guides publish a general labourer day rate.Between them they run from £100 to £360, and the £140 benchmark sits inside that.It is the figure the benchmark is published beside; the cards after it are the tests.
PriceYourJob (2025 guide), ConcreteMath, CostEstimator, MyBuilder and Checkatrade, checked 30 September 2026
Office for National Statistics
ONS
The Office for National Statistics files general labourers under its basic construction group.
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 general labouring 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
Fewer guides cover this tradeFewer price guides cover general labouring, so treat this figure with extra care.
This Hudson figure is not a trade figureRead that Hudson number as a whole industry benchmark, not a general labourer rate.
General Labourer wages and pay rates
What general labourers are paid is a different measurement from the £140 a customer is charged, and both are on this page.
Paid as an employee
Not published
ONS files general labourers inside its elementary construction codes, which cover far more jobs than labouring.
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
Employed, starter to experienced
£23,000 to £35,000 a year
The National Careers Service construction labourer profile prints both salaries, read 3 October 2026.They are employee salaries before tax, not the £140 a customer pays for a day.
What tradespeople earn sets general labourers beside the other 16 trades, sourced 5 September 2026.
Pricing a short job rather than a full day, the £140 works out at £20.00 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 general labourers, and names the day it divides by.
Against the decorator benchmark
Decorators benchmark at £200 a day on this site.
General labouring comes in £60 under that figure.
- General Labourer benchmark
- £140
- Painter and decorator benchmark
- £200
- Gap at the benchmark
- £60 under
Common questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word.
How much does a general labourer charge per day in the UK?
Our benchmark for a general labourer is £140 a day.
Published UK price guides put general labourers between £100 and £360, checked 30 September 2026.
Sources: PriceYourJob (2025 guide), ConcreteMath, CostEstimator, MyBuilder and Checkatrade.
Across the 30 modelled towns the figure runs from £112 in Sunderland to £165 in Guildford.
Does the general labourer day rate include materials or VAT?
No.
The £140 is one full working day of general labourer labour, before materials and VAT.
Why do general labourer rates differ between towns?
The £140 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 £165 on Guildford and £112 on Sunderland.
That is a £53 gap across the 30 towns for the same day of general labourer work.
What is the general labourer pay rate in the UK?
The general labourer pay rate depends on who is paying it.
ONS files general labourers inside its elementary construction codes, which cover far more jobs than labouring.
For general labourers 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 general labourer series.
Neither is the £140 a general labourer charges a customer.
Take the data
Every figure on this page is in the file, with the same sources and the same date.
Download · CSVlabourer-day-rates.csv30 rows, one per town, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, General Labourer day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/labourer-day-rates/
Embed this figure
The general labourer card carries the benchmark and the date, and the link goes to this page.
<a href="https://thedayrate.co.uk/labourer-day-rates/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/labourer-day-rates.png" alt="General Labourer day rates in 30 UK towns, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The general labourer 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 general labourer work yourself?The £140 general labourer benchmark beside every other trade on this site, read from the side of the person sending the invoice.What should I chargeWeighing up a general labourer quote?A £140 general labourer 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 general labourer day rate into a job price.
None of the 30 towns modelled above is London, where this site publishes no general labourer rate of its own and prints what the named guides publish instead.