How to price electrical work: day rates, fixed prices and the quotes that win

Published 27 May 2026 · updated 11 June 2026 · SparkCerts guides for UK electricians

Two electricians look at the same board change. One quotes £450, the other £700, and the £700 quote can be the better-priced one if it actually covers what the day costs. Pricing electrical work is mostly the discipline of knowing your own numbers, and the trade is full of good electricians subsidising their customers because they have never sat down with them.

Know what your hour costs before you sell it

Start with the boring arithmetic. Take everything the business spends in a year: van, fuel, insurance, scheme membership, test gear and its calibration, software, tools, training, phone, accountancy. Divide by the hours you can genuinely bill, which after travel, quoting and admin is nearer 1,200 than 2,000. That figure, plus the wage you intend to pay yourself, is your hourly floor. Most sole traders who do this exercise discover their floor is £10 to £15 above what they have been charging.

Day rate or fixed price

Day rate transfers risk to the customer, fixed price transfers it to you, and the price should reflect who is carrying it. Diagnostic work, fault finding and anything inside old walls deserves a day rate, because nobody can scope the unknown. Defined jobs, a board change, a circuit, an EICR, deserve a fixed price, because customers compare fixed prices and because a fixed price rewards you for being faster than average rather than punishing you for it. The discipline fixed pricing demands is the written scope: what is included, what is excluded, and what happens when the wall reveals a surprise.

Price the certificate in, never on

Testing and certification are part of the job, not an extra. A quote that lists the EIC as a chargeable line item reads as a job priced without the testing. Fold the testing time into the labour and hand the certificate over with the invoice, where it quietly does its other job: a landlord pays faster when the document they legally need arrives attached to the bill.

The quote that arrives first wins

Domestic customers rarely hold a three-quote beauty contest; they take the first credible number from someone who turned up and seemed sane. Speed is therefore a pricing strategy. The electrician who prices the job in the kitchen from saved line items and sends it before leaving the street wins work against better-known firms still promising to email something over. That habit is a tooling question as much as a temperament one, and it is the reason we built quoting into SparkCerts rather than treating it as someone else's app. Our guide to electrician software for a one-man band covers the rest of that toolkit.

A board change, priced from first principles

Theory is easy to nod along to, so here is a worked consumer unit change for an average house, built up the way the price should be rather than guessed against the competition.

That lands inside the typical consumer unit replacement range for a reason: the range is what the work costs when it is priced properly. Notice the certificate is inside the labour line, not bolted on, and notice there is no allowance for the bonding upgrade that the survey might reveal, which is why the quote should say what happens if it does.

Get paid: terms, deposits and the certificate as leverage

Pricing the job right is half of it; collecting is the other half. For anything with real material cost, take a deposit on acceptance that covers the parts, so you are never funding someone else's board out of your own account. Put payment terms on the invoice, 7 or 14 days, not "on completion" left vague. And send the certificate with the invoice rather than after it, because for a landlord the document they are legally required to hold is the strongest reason to pay the bill that arrives attached to it. Our guide to software for a one-man band covers automating the chase so you are not writing reminder texts at nine at night.

Walking away is pricing too

Some jobs are priced correctly at no. The customer who opens with what the last electrician did wrong, the job that needs three trades coordinated for the price of one, the landlord who wants the EICR satisfactory rather than accurate. A diary full at a healthy rate beats a diary rammed at a poor one, and the quote you decline costs nothing to honour.

Common questions

What is an electrician's day rate in the UK?

In 2026 a qualified electrician's day rate typically runs £280 to £450, higher in London and the South East. Day rate suits diagnostic and open-ended work; defined jobs are usually better quoted as a fixed price.

Should an electrician charge for quotes?

Most domestic quotes are free and priced into won work. Charging becomes reasonable for survey-heavy quotes such as a full rewire or an EICR-led remedial list, where the quote itself takes hours of inspection.

How much should I add for materials?

A markup of 10 to 20 percent on trade prices is normal and legitimate: it covers collection, returns, warranty handling and the cost of carrying stock. Charging list price while paying trade achieves the same thing with less arithmetic.

How do I work out my hourly rate as an electrician?

Add up everything the business spends in a year, divide by the hours you can genuinely bill (nearer 1,200 than 2,000 once travel, quoting and admin are removed), then add the wage you want to pay yourself. That figure is your floor, not your aspiration.

Should I take a deposit before starting?

For jobs with material cost up front, yes. A deposit covering the board, cable and any special-order parts protects your cash flow and filters out time-wasters. Defined jobs often take a deposit on acceptance with the balance on completion.

Why did my fixed-price job lose money?

Almost always because the scope was not written down. Without an agreed list of what is included and excluded, every surprise behind the wall comes out of your margin. Fixed pricing only works with a fixed scope and a clause for what happens when the job grows.