Every figure on this site traces back to a named public source with a date.
This page sets out the model, the inputs, and how it was checked.
How the model works, in one line
Four inputs, one formula, no judgement calls.
- 01Day rate definedOne full working day of labour.Before materials and VAT.
- 02Start pointA £200 national benchmark.Published UK price guides put decorators between £120 and £400, checked 30 September 2026.Every trade is treated the same way. The benchmark is published against the spread its guides print, shown with its date on each trade page.
- 03Wage indexRegional median weekly pay against the UK median of £766.60.
- 04House price indexTown average house price against the UK average of £291,000.Square rooted, because house prices swing more than pay.
Town rate£200 × (wage index
+ √house price index) ÷ 2
Worked, at the top of the range
Average pay, and a £525,000 average house price.
Square rooting the housing side pulls the multiplier down to 1.34 from the 1.80 it would otherwise reach, which is what stops the dearest towns running away with the model while still letting them read higher than the cheapest ones.
The regional pay inputs
Median weekly full time pay by region, from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), April 2025. Regional figures are used because town level pay samples are too small.
| Region | Median weekly pay |
|---|---|
| London | £958.20 |
| South East | £775.80 |
| Scotland | £773.80 |
| East of England | £766.60 |
| North West | £734.20 |
| West Midlands | £730.40 |
| South West | £728.70 |
| Yorkshire | £708.20 |
| Wales | £704.30 |
| East Midlands | £703.80 |
| North East | £681.20 |
| United Kingdom | £766.60 |
The wage index is a region's figure divided by that United Kingdom median.
Which sources the register holds
Every input, with its date.
- 01ONS ASHE April 2025 regional median weekly payEarnings data from the Office for National Statistics.Published via Parliamentary written answer HL529, 18 June 2026.
- 02ONS local house prices, April 2026 provisionalEach town average is data from the ONS local housing price pages.Fetched individually on 30 June 2026.
- 03UK average house price £291,000Per the UK House Price Index, April 2026 release.Published on gov.uk, 17 June 2026.
- 04National day rate price guide registerCheckatrade £325, HaMuch £173, MyBuilder £150 to £250, CostEstimator £165, MyJobQuote £200 to £300 with a £400 high in its own panel, PriceYourJob £120 to £180.Re-read against every original page on 30 September 2026. Published spread £120 to £400, and the £200 benchmark sits inside it.
- 05ONS ASHE 2025 provisional median pay by occupationMedian weekly pay for each trade by four digit SOC code, from ASHE Table 14.Released 23 October 2025 and checked 5 September 2026, under the Open Government Licence v3.0.A cross check beside every benchmark, never an input to one.Open ASHE Table 14 at ONS
- 06Hudson Contract construction pay trendsReal self employed payments, £1,021 a week across all trades, about £204 a day (three year average, July 2023 to June 2026).Per trade figures are used where Hudson publishes one, and where it does not, the page says the number is an all trades average.A cross check beside the base, never inside it.
The whole dataset, in one file
Every trade in every town, 510 rows, with the column definitions beside them.
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
trade | The trade as it is named on its own report page. |
trade_slug | The registry slug, which is also the trade page and CSV filename. |
town | One of the 30 modelled towns. |
region | The ONS region the town sits in, which sets its wage index. |
day_rate_gbp | The modelled day rate for that trade in that town, in pounds, labour only, before materials and VAT. |
modelled_town_low_gbp | That town rate multiplied by 0.75, which is our arithmetic and not a published figure. |
modelled_town_high_gbp | That town rate multiplied by 1.30, on the same basis. |
national_benchmark_gbp | The trade national benchmark the town rates are spread from. |
published_spread_low_gbp | The lowest day rate any named UK price guide publishes for the trade, empty where none publishes one. |
published_spread_high_gbp | The highest day rate any named UK price guide publishes for the trade, on the same basis. |
spread_checked | The date those named guides were last read. |
page_url | The page this row is published on, which is where to cite it from. |
Earlier editions stay where they were
Figures move when a source moves, so each edition is frozen at its own address the day it closes.
A citation made against an edition still resolves after a later re-check has changed a number.
- July 2026: the frozen CSV and the frozen JSON.
Take the data
The method is free to reproduce, and so is every figure it produces.
The model on this page is free to reproduce in an article or a fact check, and a credit with a link back is all we ask, under CC BY 4.0.
Your next step
You have seen how the model works, so the next step is running your own figures through it.
The Rate Sorted calculator takes your overheads and returns a rate built on the same benchmarks.