Pricing Your Trade Work: How to Quote Jobs Without Losing Money
One of the most common reasons tradesmen go bust — or just quietly burn out — isn't a lack of work. It's pricing that doesn't cover the reality of running a business. Too many good engineers and sparks are out there working 50-hour weeks and wondering why the bank account never grows. The answer is almost always the same: the numbers weren't right from the start. This guide is about fixing that.
Know Your Real Costs Before You Quote Anything
Before you can set a day rate or quote a fixed-price job, you need to know what it actually costs you to show up to work each day. Most tradesmen think about their materials and their hours. The ones who struggle forget everything in between.
Calculating Your Minimum Viable Day Rate
Start with your annual fixed costs. Write them all down: van finance or depreciation, insurance (van, public liability, tool, gas safe or NICEIC registration), fuel, phone, software and tools, accountant fees, training and requalification. Add your personal drawings — what you actually need to live on after tax. Now add around 20% on top for tax (or speak to your accountant about your specific situation).
Divide that annual total by the number of days you can realistically bill in a year. Not 365. Not even 260. Once you strip out weekends, bank holidays, two weeks' holiday, sick days, days spent quoting, chasing invoices, doing admin, and weeks where work is slow, you're probably looking at 200 to 220 billable days. For many sole traders it's closer to 180.
That daily figure — the one that covers everything and pays you properly — is your floor. It's not your rate. It's the minimum you need to charge before you've made a single pound of profit. Your actual rate needs to sit above it.
Don't Forget Non-Billable Time
Every hour you spend driving to a merchant, writing up a quote, chasing a late payment, or renewing your Gas Safe registration is an hour you're not billing. If you work 50 hours a week but only bill 35, your real hourly rate is 30% lower than you think. Factor this in when setting your day rate. The answer isn't to bill every hour of your life — it's to price your billable hours high enough to absorb the overhead of running the business.
A useful benchmark: if you're a Gas Safe registered engineer in the South East, your all-in day rate (materials excluded) should rarely be below £280–£350 to stay viable as a sole trader. In the North, figures vary, but the principle is the same — work backwards from your costs, not forwards from what the competition charges.
Day Rate vs Fixed Price: Choosing the Right Approach
Neither model is universally better. The skill is knowing which one protects you on a given job.
When Day Rate Works in Your Favour
Day rate makes sense when the scope is uncertain — a boiler swap where you don't know what you'll find behind the wall, a rewire in an older property, or any remedial job where the previous work was done badly. Charging day rate on these jobs means the customer shares the risk of the unknown. Be upfront with customers that day rate is appropriate here and explain why. Most reasonable customers get it.
Day rate also suits you when you're working for a regular customer or a builder who uses you repeatedly — it's simpler to administer and keeps the relationship straightforward.
When Fixed Price Works in Your Favour
Fixed price suits you when the scope is absolutely clear and you've done the same job dozens of times. A gas safety inspection on a standard domestic boiler. An EICR on a straightforward terraced house. A like-for-like bathroom suite swap. You know how long it takes, you know what materials cost, and you can price it confidently with a margin built in.
Fixed price also works to your advantage when you're faster than average. If you can complete a job in four hours that takes a less experienced engineer six, you earn a better effective hourly rate. The customer pays for certainty, you earn for your efficiency. That's how experience pays off financially.
Materials Markup: Don't Skip This
A lot of tradesmen pass materials through at cost and wonder why they're essentially acting as a free procurement service for their customers. Your time sourcing, ordering, collecting, and managing materials has a cost. A standard markup of 15–25% on materials is normal and entirely reasonable. On larger jobs with significant material spend, even 10% covers your sourcing time and protects you if prices shift between quote and completion.
When quoting, be clear that material prices are subject to availability and market conditions, especially on jobs that won't start for several weeks. Copper, cable, and fittings prices can move, and you shouldn't absorb those increases silently.
Never quote a fixed materials price months in advance without a caveat. Supply chain issues, price rises, and discontinued products can turn a profit into a loss before you've picked up a tool. Always include a variation clause in your written quote, or note that material costs are correct at the date of issue and subject to change.
Building a Proper Quote
A scribbled number on a text message is not a quote. It's a liability. A proper written quote protects you legally, sets clear expectations, and makes you look professional — which is, itself, a reason customers choose you over someone cheaper.
What to Include in Every Quote
Describe exactly what is included. Be specific. "Replace boiler" is not enough. "Supply and install Worcester Bosch Greenstar 4000 30kW combi, connect to existing system, commission, and register warranty" leaves no room for argument.
List anything that might be expected but isn't in scope. Draining the system, making good after pipework, plastering, decoration — if it's not your job, say so explicitly.
State how long the quote is valid. 30 days is standard. This protects you from a customer who comes back six months later expecting the same price after material costs have risen.
Be explicit. When is payment due? Do you require a deposit on materials for larger jobs? What happens if payment is late? Put it in writing before the work starts, not after.
Contingency and Variations
On any job with unknowns, build in a contingency allowance or reserve the right to raise a variation if the scope changes. If you open a wall and find asbestos lagging, that's a variation. If the existing pipework is corroded beyond use, that's a variation. These are not your fault and should not come out of your margin. Have the conversation with the customer before you start and get agreement in writing if the scope changes mid-job.
Certification, Compliance, and the Value of Your Qualifications
Your qualifications aren't just a legal requirement — they're a key part of the value you provide. Customers who choose a Gas Safe registered engineer or a registered electrician are paying for compliance and peace of mind, not just labour. Make sure your pricing reflects that.
Every gas safety inspection you carry out produces a CP12 landlord gas safety record that a landlord is legally required to hold. Every electrical condition survey produces an EICR that carries real liability. These aren't just pieces of paper — they're professional documents that carry your name and your registration number. Price the inspection work to reflect that responsibility, not just the time it takes to physically do the check.
Landlords and letting agents who use you regularly are not price-sensitive customers in the way a one-off domestic job might be. They need compliant documentation on a schedule, they need reliability, and they need it done right. Build relationships with a handful of good landlords and price accordingly — reliably good service at a fair price is worth more to them than the cheapest quote.
When to Walk Away
Not every job is worth taking. This is one of the most important — and hardest — business lessons for anyone running their own trade business.
Red Flags Before You Quote
If a customer's first question is "how much?" before you've even seen the job, that's often a signal they're shopping purely on price. That's their right, but it's also a signal that they'll haggle, pay late, or find fault after the job. None of that is profitable or enjoyable.
If a customer tells you that "the last bloke quoted half that," ask yourself why the last bloke isn't doing the job. Either the other quote missed something, the customer is making it up to pressure you, or the other tradesman genuinely can't afford to do it at that price. None of those scenarios end well for you.
The Real Cost of a Bad Job
A job you lose money on doesn't just cost you money. It costs you time you could have spent on a profitable job. It costs you energy. It can cost you reputation if the customer is the sort who'll complain regardless. And if you end up in a dispute, it costs you stress that no hourly rate compensates for.
Turning down work feels uncomfortable at first. But every experienced tradesman who's been running their own business for a few years will tell you the same thing: the jobs they turned down rarely kept them up at night. The ones they wished they'd turned down did.
A simple test for whether to walk away: if you won this job at the price being pushed, would you be happy doing it? If the honest answer is no — if you'd be resenting every hour on site — decline politely. Your time and goodwill are finite. Protect them.
Staying on Top of Your Numbers
Pricing is not something you set once and forget. Review your day rate and fixed-price job fees at least once a year, ideally twice. Your costs go up — fuel, insurance, Gas Safe fees, material prices. If your rates haven't moved in three years, you've effectively given yourself a pay cut every year.
Track your jobs. Know which types of work take longer than you quote. Know which customers pay on time and which don't. Know your average margin. You don't need sophisticated accounting software for this — a simple spreadsheet updated weekly is enough to spot patterns. The data will tell you where you're leaving money on the table and where you're getting it right.
Running a trade business well is a skill on top of the trade itself. The tradesmen who thrive long-term aren't necessarily the most technically skilled — they're the ones who respect the business side as much as the tools. Get the pricing right, and everything else gets easier.
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Published February 2026. This article is for general guidance only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. Always refer to the relevant standards and consult qualified professionals for definitive requirements.