“How much does a plumber earn?” is one of the most-Googled questions about UK trades, and almost every answer misses the most important distinction. An employed electrician on £35,000 and a self-employed spark running a small electrical contracting business with £74,000 turnover are in the same trade but in completely different financial positions. Here is what the data actually says.
Salary vs turnover vs take-home profit
Before comparing numbers, you have to separate three things that get muddled in every Facebook thread and pub argument about trade earnings.
Salary is what an employed tradesperson gets paid. The employer handles tax, National Insurance, holiday, sick pay, and pension contributions. The number on the payslip is what lands in the bank account after deductions.
Turnover is the total amount a trades business invoices in a year before any costs come out. It includes materials purchased for customers, subcontractor payments, fuel, vehicle leases, insurance, tool replacement, software subscriptions, and every other operating expense.
Profit is what remains after all those costs. A builder turning over £110,000 does not personally earn £110,000. Materials, subcontractors, plant hire, and insurance can consume half or more of that figure before the owner takes a penny.
For context, the Office for National Statistics puts the median gross annual earnings for a full-time UK employee at £39,039 in April 2025, with median weekly earnings of £766.60 and median hourly earnings of £19.67 excluding overtime.
What each trade earns: employed vs business owner
The table below compares National Careers Service salary estimates for employed tradespeople against average annual turnover reported by trades businesses insured through Simply Business in 2024.
| Trade | Employed salary | Avg business turnover |
|---|---|---|
| Builders | Varies by role | £110,260 |
| Dryliners | Varies | £95,979 |
| Groundworkers | Varies | £93,112 |
| Glaziers | Varies | £91,389 |
| Flooring contractors | Varies | £88,188 |
| Plumbers | £24,000–£46,000 | £86,394 |
| Kitchen & bathroom fitters | £24,000–£45,000 | £75,262 |
| Electricians | £26,000–£45,000 | £74,448 |
| Gas engineers | £25,000–£45,000 | £74,387 |
| Joiners | Comparable to carpentry | £73,160 |
| Carpenters | £24,000–£40,000 | £64,523 |
| Bricklayers | £25,000–£45,000 | £63,167 |
| Tilers | Varies | £61,706 |
| Roofers | £26,000–£42,000 | £56,799 |
Sources: National Careers Service (salary ranges), Simply Business (average business turnover, 2024). Turnover figures are pre-tax business revenue, not personal income.
The highest-turnover trades
Builders recorded the highest average turnover at approximately £110,260. Building businesses handle large renovation projects, extensions, and new construction. They also pass through significant materials and subcontractor costs, so high turnover does not equal high take-home pay.
Dryliners and groundworkers averaged around £96,000 and £93,000 respectively. These trades are often connected to larger construction and commercial projects, invoicing contractors and developers rather than individual homeowners.
Glaziers and flooring contractors both averaged around £88,000– £91,000. Their turnover can include the cost of products supplied to customers — windows, glass, flooring materials — which inflates the top-line figure without increasing profit.
Plumbing businesses averaged £86,394, boosted by emergency call-outs, heating work, and commercial contracts. Gas engineers saw a 12% increase in average turnover year-on-year to £74,387, driven by recurring boiler servicing, landlord safety checks, and heating installations.
Day rates: what customers pay and what you keep
Checkatrade estimates the following typical UK charge-out rates for 2025:
- Electricians: approximately £300–£500 per day (£40–£70 per hour)
- Plumbers: approximately £320–£480 per day
- Painters and decorators: approximately £250–£350 per day
- Labourers: approximately £112–£280 per day
A tradesperson charging £400 per day does not walk away with £400 in personal income. That day rate must cover materials, fuel, vehicle costs, public liability insurance, quoting and travelling time, software and payment fees, tax and National Insurance, and the days when no billable work comes in. Self-employment means you are the business — and the business has overheads.
Where you work changes what you earn
Location has a dramatic effect on trades business revenue. In the Simply Business study, the highest average turnover was recorded in Chichester (£195,899), Uxbridge (£152,093), Watford (£139,899), Sevenoaks (£136,779), and Poole (£124,156). Several of the highest-turnover locations are in London or the South East, where labour rates and operating costs are both higher.
But higher turnover in expensive postcodes does not automatically mean higher profit. A plumber in Watford charging higher day rates also pays more for fuel, parking, vehicle insurance, and workshop space than a plumber in Sunderland. The regional premium cuts both ways.
For an interactive comparison of exactly how hourly rates vary trade by trade across all 12 UK regions — with a toggle to switch between ONS employee data and Hudson Contract self-employed earnings — see the UK trades hourly rate heatmap.
The bottom line
An employed UK tradesperson will commonly earn somewhere between approximately £24,000 and £46,000 per year, depending on the trade, experience, and location. That is a solid middle-income career with none of the admin burden of running a business.
Self-employed tradespeople and business owners can generate considerably more revenue. Among businesses in the Simply Business study, average turnover across all UK trades was approximately £66,172 in 2024. But turnover is not salary. After materials, fuel, insurance, subcontractors, vehicle costs, software, and tax, the personal take-home is always lower — sometimes by half.
The highest-turnover businesses were builders, dryliners, groundworkers, glaziers, and flooring contractors. Plumbers and electricians sit in the middle of the turnover table but benefit from strong recurring demand and emergency work that keeps the diary full.
If you are running a trades business and want to keep more of what you invoice, reducing the unbillable hours spent on quoting, invoicing, and chasing payments is one of the fastest levers. Every hour spent rebuilding an invoice from scratch is an hour not spent on a paying job. You can watch the 60-second product demo to see how recurring invoice schedules, automated reminders, and payment tracking turn billing into a background process, or read six practical steps for dealing with late payment of invoices if collecting after the job is the harder half of the problem.