What are we paying our blokes?

[doobin]

I'll start-

Digger driver, picks and chooses his hours somewhat as semi retired. Reasonable op, has a few ingrained bad habits- £100 a day
Polish labourer- hard worker, good English, but thick. Will not remember anything even if it's the fifth time you told him how and why. Spoon feed him and he will graft- £8.50/hour.

 

[Mintsauce]

Sounds about right to me. I don't know if your lads go on their phones much but I think it's necessary to dock money for surreptitious personal phone usage.

 

[Brendan]

Don't often have guys with me but 70-80 for labourer, occasionally 150-200 for Brickie, not tried any machine ops but most want 150+ a day same as groundworkers want similiar.
Hard to come by any sort of decent labourer/semi skilled people as most of my work is single person stuff so is only odd days they're needed I charge fairly well for them so is room to pay more bit generally the ones you can get aren't worth it.
Looked at an agency but that gets expensive very quick and no guarantee of fluent in english or them being any good, from the last rates I had
Groundworker (skilled) £17.50-20
Groundwork labourer £14-16
360 £20-24
Dumper driver £17.5-19.5
Even a general labourer is £12-14
All minimum of 8 hours and plus vat then over 9 hours is time and third. Sat on and Sunday is time and half

 

[Lynchy]

£16.64days min 10 hours,£18.00 nights min 10 hours,£22.64 week ends min 12 hours,plus hotel work away mostly,40p mile,doing bout 1500 miles next ten days,aberdeen-durham-Reading-Durham-Billericay,£20 day food all paye

 

[Gunners]

I used to pay £85/day for a labourer/ dumper driver, skilled groundworker & digger drivers £140/day.
Now I don't have any employees, I go out to other contractors and builders for anywhere between £160-£200/ day but I do turn up with all the tools, cat scanner, laser etc. Been pioneering the £200 rate for a couple of months now and its not impossible to get once you can demonstrate you'll actually save the builder money by working smarter, getting it right and being organised. It certainly makes me wonder if I should bother with owning any plant when people will pay that money for me and some hand tools

 

[Grahams]

Hi Lynchy,
How does the tax work for you on the hotel and food? I pay for hotel and actual cost of food and drink, but my accountant sometimes quibles about what should be classed as income and what as expenses.
Do you have guys who have other jobs and just work weekends? I guess it is agency work?
Thanks
Graham

 

[Lynchy]

Hi Lynchy,
How does the tax work for you on the hotel and food? I pay for hotel and actual cost of food and drink, but my accountant sometimes quibles about what should be classed as income and what as expenses.
Do you have guys who have other jobs and just work weekends? I guess it is agency work?
Thanks
Graham

Good question ....no not agency it's direct ,firm I'm on for has full time paye,zero hours paye me,cis and ltd co subbys
Hotels booked through resourcing,just had 21 nights in Aberdeen,in Reading now
Think cis get 20% deduction on mileage,get hotels suppliedso do ltd co
Provide receipt for food,any £ value,n I just put in mileage claim based on autoroute,used to get £60/day without receiptbut those days,and manager long gone!

 

[Grahams]

Provide receipt for food,any £ value,n I just put in mileage claim based on autoroute

That seems pretty fair. We mostly stay on premier inn where we have an account cards that pay for room, food and drink so no one has to find the money up front and claim it back.
Same with fuel. Company pickup with a fuel card.
I used to do hotel plus fixed amount of living expenses regardless what was spent but accountant really didn’t like that.
I’m amazed at the amount of guys on the road still having to share two or three to a room and not getting enough allowance to cover basic food costs.
Graham

 

[JD450A]

Watched this thread for a while, time to weigh in.

I don't pay less than £10/hr for self employed lads, be that on dumper or just labour. We had one man last year on a excavator for a couple weeks but his attitude didn't pan out and rightly or wrongly.

Next year I have my own works planned, and another scheme which will see me and the machine on hire for a very good flat rate irrelevant of if I use my digger or not, and obviously extra money if I use my truck or other bits of my kit.

ATM we are running out at £18/hr pedalling someone else's 13t machine. Easy money and WTF you would want to be a owner operator is beyond me.

 

[Lynchy]

That seems pretty fair. We mostly stay on premier inn where we have an account cards that pay for room, food and drink so no one has to find the money up front and claim it back.
Same with fuel. Company pickup with a fuel card.
I used to do hotel plus fixed amount of living expenses regardless what was spent but accountant really didn’t like that.
I’m amazed at the amount of guys on the road still having to share two or three to a room and not getting enough allowance to cover basic food costs.
Graham

Used to have Holiday inn Express or premier inn but few years back was only me travelling,just before Xmas had 3 weeks in Aberdeen travel Lodge 17 rooms booked
Yeah once you start into London or holiday places prices go crazy
We're fairly specialised so guess it's covered but plenty have to rough it

 

[Quattromike]

Yeah seen plenty of the holiday villages appear next to the construction yard, lighting towers and gensets running day and night