National benchmark
£270
A modelled benchmark, published beside the guide spread rather than derived from it.
Our benchmark for a plumber is £270 a day.
Published UK price guides put plumbers between £150 and £480, checked 30 September 2026.
Sources: Checkatrade, MyJobQuote, MyBuilder, HaMuch, CostEstimator and PriceYourJob (2025 guide).
Plumber rates across 30 towns
Ranked by modelled plumber 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 plumber 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 £270 | Modelled range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GuildfordSouth East£239 to £413 | £318 | £48 above | |
| 2 | OxfordSouth East£232 to £402 | £309 | £39 above | |
| 3 | CambridgeEast of England£229 to £397 | £305 | £35 above | |
| 4 | BrightonSouth East£222 to £385 | £296 | £26 above | |
| 5 | BathSouth West£215 to £372 | £286 | £16 above | |
| 6 | ReadingSouth East£213 to £369 | £284 | £14 above | |
| 7 | BristolSouth West£209 to £361 | £278 | £8 above | |
| 8 | Milton KeynesSouth East£209 to £361 | £278 | £8 above | |
| 9 | CheltenhamSouth West£205 to £355 | £273 | £3 above | |
| 10 | EdinburghScotland£204 to £354 | £272 | £2 above | |
| 11 | YorkYorkshire£197 to £342 | £263 | £7 below | |
| 12 | ExeterSouth West£197 to £341 | £262 | £8 below | |
| 13 | PortsmouthSouth East£196 to £339 | £261 | £9 below | |
| 14 | NorthamptonEast Midlands£194 to £337 | £259 | £11 below | |
| 15 | SouthamptonSouth East£194 to £335 | £258 | £12 below | |
| 16 | CardiffWales£191 to £332 | £255 | £15 below | |
| 17 | NorwichEast of England£191 to £332 | £255 | £15 below | |
| 18 | ManchesterNorth West£191 to £330 | £254 | £16 below | |
| 19 | BirminghamWest Midlands£188 to £325 | £250 | £20 below | |
| 20 | LeedsYorkshire£187 to £324 | £249 | £21 below | |
| 21 | LeicesterEast Midlands£184 to £319 | £245 | £25 below | |
| 22 | CoventryWest Midlands£184 to £319 | £245 | £25 below | |
| 23 | GlasgowScotland£183 to £317 | £244 | £26 below | |
| 24 | SheffieldYorkshire£182 to £316 | £243 | £27 below | |
| 25 | DerbyEast Midlands£178 to £308 | £237 | £33 below | |
| 26 | LiverpoolNorth West£177 to £307 | £236 | £34 below | |
| 27 | NewcastleNorth East£176 to £304 | £234 | £36 below | |
| 28 | NottinghamEast Midlands£176 to £304 | £234 | £36 below | |
| 29 | Stoke-on-TrentWest Midlands£170 to £295 | £227 | £43 below | |
| 30 | SunderlandNorth East£162 to £281 | £216 | £54 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 £420
- Range the modelled range, the rate x 0.75 and x 1.30
Your next step
You have the £270 plumber benchmark, so the next step is a plumber 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 plumber day rate, ready to price a job with.
Highest town
£318
Guildford, the biggest premium over the benchmark in the 30.
Cheapest town
£216
Sunderland, £54 under the benchmark and the floor of the table.
Published guide spread
£150 to £480
What 6 named guides publish for plumbers, checked 30 September 2026.
Hiring a plumber?
A plumber quote between £150 and £480 a day is inside what the UK guides publish, and £270 is the benchmark this site models from.
Quoting as a plumber?
£270 puts plumbers 2 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 £270. It shows where the weight of the plumber table sits, and how far each end has travelled from that benchmark.
£270 benchmark
Guildford £318
Sunderland sits at the other end, on £216.
That is a £102 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 £420 scale, plumbers 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 £244 and £278. Read that middle £34 band first when a plumber quote needs a quick sanity check against somewhere of a similar size.
Above the benchmark
10 towns clear £270, 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, £270Stated 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 plumber 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 plumbers charged.
The full working behind every plumber 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, £258 to £318£284
East of England2 towns covered, £255 to £305£280
South West4 towns covered, £262 to £286£276
Scotland2 towns covered, £244 to £272£258
Wales1 town covered, £255 to £255£255
Yorkshire3 towns covered, £243 to £263£249
North West2 towns covered, £236 to £254£245
West Midlands3 towns covered, £227 to £250£245
East Midlands4 towns covered, £234 to £259£241
North East2 towns covered, £216 to £234£225
The spread is the story
A Guildford day and a Sunderland day are the same plumber work at a £102 difference.
How the £270 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 £270.
What the guides publish
£150 to £480
6 named UK price guides publish a plumber day rate.Between them they run from £150 to £480, and the £270 benchmark sits inside that.It is the figure the benchmark is published beside; the cards after it are the tests.
Checkatrade, MyJobQuote, MyBuilder, HaMuch, CostEstimator and PriceYourJob (2025 guide), checked 30 September 2026
Office for National Statistics
£738
The Office for National Statistics puts plumber pay at £738 a week (2025 pay survey).
ONS ASHE 2025 provisional, employee earnings, not a charge out rate · ASHE Table 14
Hudson Contract, what firms pay
£1,221
Hudson Contract, which tracks what firms pay trades, has plumbing at £1,221 a week, about £244 a day.
Hudson Contract, subcontractor payroll, England and Wales, three year average, July 2023 to June 2026
Plumber wages and pay rates
What plumbers are paid is a different measurement from the £270 a customer is charged, and both are on this page.
Paid as an employee
£738 a week
That is the ONS median for plumbers employed on a payroll, under SOC 5315.It is a wage before tax, not a rate anybody quotes a customer.
Paid as a subcontractor
£244 a day
Hudson Contract paid £1,221 a week on its plumbing series, which is £244 over five days.this trade, published by Hudson under its own name
Employed, starter to experienced
£24,000 to £46,000 a year
The National Careers Service plumber profile prints both salaries, read 3 October 2026.They are employee salaries before tax, not the £270 a customer pays for a day.
By experience
Apprentice: £15 to £25 an hourMid level plumber: £40 to £60 an hourPlumber with more experience: £60 to £80 an hourMyBuilder, customer hourly rates by experience, dated 21 August 2026.
What tradespeople earn sets plumbers beside the other 16 trades, sourced 5 September 2026.
Pricing a short job rather than a full day, the £270 works out at £38.57 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 plumbers, and names the day it divides by.
Against the decorator benchmark
Decorators benchmark at £200 a day on this site.
Plumbing comes in £70 over that figure.
- Plumber benchmark
- £270
- Painter and decorator benchmark
- £200
- Gap at the benchmark
- £70 over
Common questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word.
How much does a plumber charge per day in the UK?
Our benchmark for a plumber is £270 a day.
Published UK price guides put plumbers between £150 and £480, checked 30 September 2026.
Sources: Checkatrade, MyJobQuote, MyBuilder, HaMuch, CostEstimator and PriceYourJob (2025 guide).
Across the 30 modelled towns the figure runs from £216 in Sunderland to £318 in Guildford.
Does the plumber day rate include materials or VAT?
No.
The £270 is one full working day of plumber labour, before materials and VAT.
Why do plumber rates differ between towns?
The £270 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 £318 on Guildford and £216 on Sunderland.
That is a £102 gap across the 30 towns for the same day of plumber work.
What is the plumber pay rate in the UK?
The plumber pay rate depends on who is paying it.
Employed on a payroll, plumbers earn an ONS median of £738 a week, under SOC 5315.
For plumbers paid as subcontractors instead, the Hudson Contract figure is its plumbing series at £1,221 a week, which works out at about £244 a day over a five day week.
That is a true plumber series.
Neither is the £270 a plumber charges a customer.
Take the data
Every figure on this page is in the file, with the same sources and the same date.
Download · CSVplumber-day-rates.csv30 rows, one per town, with the rate, the modelled range and the published spread.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, Plumber day rates, 30 September 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/plumber-day-rates/
Embed this figure
The plumber card carries the benchmark and the date, and the link goes to this page.
<a href="https://thedayrate.co.uk/plumber-day-rates/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/plumber-day-rates.png" alt="Plumber day rates in 30 UK towns, from The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
The plumber 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 plumber work yourself?The £270 plumber benchmark beside every other trade on this site, read from the side of the person sending the invoice.What should I chargeWeighing up a plumber quote?A £270 plumber 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 plumber day rate into a job price.
None of the 30 towns modelled above is London, where this site publishes no plumber rate of its own and prints what the named guides publish instead.