That's £2000 Please….. You've been here 20 minutes mate?????

What's the point in all the training and qualifications to become a qualified electrician in order to earn the same money as a forklift driver? 

If someone describes you as a cheap electrician - You're not charging enough. 

Consider all the outgoings you have, all the time and effort it took you to be a good electrician - not a cheap one. 

There is also the story of how I became an electrician and ended up working in all over the world in places like Japan. 

Don't just listen to the podcast, everything mentioned are things I have learnt over time.  So take action and start to run your business how I wish I did from the start.

Then to go that step further, come on over to the Tool Box Talks For Electricians group on Facebook for free downloads to help your business grow.

Toolbox talks for electricians, loading electricians with the tools and the skills they need to reduce stress, gain back time, and of course, earn more money. Welcome back once again. My name's Ben. Your toolbox talks for electricians host, and in this podcast you'll find out why you should be charging so much money as an electrician.

And if you don't charge that, you might as well go work in a factory or do something different because you're trained to be an electrician. You've done all this training, so you might as well make it pay. And as I've learned over the years, there's a few different stages to sort of be an electrician and we've all gotta start somewhere.

So doing a job for your mum's best mate, Karen, who lives down the road for 20 quid. Yeah, you can earn a little bit of pocket money. 20 quid. It's an easy job sticking a light up. But it's not gonna give you the way to build electrical business. It's not gonna sort of drum into your head the foundations of how you want to build this business and how you want to progress as you go on with sort of new customers and not your mum's mate, Karen.

Because if you keep doing these jobs for maybe 20 quid here, 30 quid there, and let's be honest, a favor is a favor. But if you do too many favors, you're not gonna be making enough money. And that's the plan, right? You start to be an electrician because maybe you see it as a good way to earn a good living.

And that's what you wanna be charged from the offset from the beginning. You don't want to be doing these favors in a way, cause it's a business the end of the day. And we're all in business to earn. When I was younger, I never even thought of being an electrician. It didn't even cross my mind. I wanted to be a mechanic, so I became an electrician to earn good money to obviously buy nice things.

Cuz when I started out, I started out as an electrician's mate. And the reason that I started out electrician mate is cuz , in college, I was working as a mechanic. And then I jacked that in because I, I didn't see it going anywhere.

I saw the guys laying underneath cars at 40 years old. It weren't really my cup of tea. I didn't want to do that. So I thought, right, I want, I want these ferras, I want this nice car. Why have some good money? So I went back to college to be an. . And while I was at college, uh, obviously you have the summer holidays off.

So in the summer holidays I got offered a job as an electrician's mate. Well, the first week I was there, I was in Manchester, and then second week I was in Luxembourg. Next week I was in Paris. Well, I thought, well, this is good. And then after a little while through the summer holidays, I was offered an apprenticeship.

An apprenticeship that I stayed with that company and they sent me all over the world. And the funny thing is it wasn't actually, and it was an electrical company. It's called Zel back in the day. It's gone now, but it was a DC power engineer company where I worked on telephone communications. And the funny thing is what I know now, you didn't necessarily have to have a qualification to be a DC power engineer.

It was sort of under the same umbrella as being an electrician. It was electricians who did DC It was quite new at the time, back in, well that's gotta be back in 19, 19 99. I think that was. So the company that I was being electricians mate for, they said, would you like to do an apprenticeship? And when they offered me the apprenticeship, I remember I was in Japan.

I was in Japan working away. And uh, I thought, well, yeah, I like this job. It's quite good. So I was told I could start a college and get an actual qualification in what I was doing. But obviously I missed the first week of um, college because Japan was fun and I didn't want to come home. But the going hourly rate these days for electrician is around 30 pound to 45 pound an hour.

And yeah, that seemed a lot for some electricians cuz it seemed a lot for me that long time ago. But I wasn't taking everything into consideration with the van. You buy to start with the tools you need. They ain't cheap, not the good ones. And the tester cost me over a grand and the tax for the van, the insurance for the van, the fuel, the wear and tear on the van, the public liability insurance, the list goes on.

We all have to pay out quite a lot to be registered, to be legal, to work in a customer's house, or legal to work in a commercial or industrial premises. These insurances and sort of regulations you have to pass. , they cost money and touch word. I've never had to use the insurance, but you have to have that in place.

It's exactly like car insurance. You have to have it in place. Cause if anything does happen, you're covered. But in my experience, a lot of customers, they don't seem to see the value of say, 30 pound an hour. Why would I pay an electrician to 30 pound an hour to come around and fix a light or to fit a light?

They don't really see that until it's too late. Cause the amount of times that I've been to a house and quite for a job, but been told that, sorry mate, I can get someone else to do it for a lot cheaper. And they go get another electrician. They do the job for them, but then in a few weeks, They ring me up and say, uh, yeah, Ben, we had this electrician come round, but it doesn't work anymore and we can't get hold of him.

So you get called up to come sort it out. It's the same scenario nine times outta 10 that maybe they've had all their kitchen rewired. The guy that done it was more than likely not electrician. That's why he is done it so cheap and it's all done wrong. They've had it tiled, painted, plastered, and finished.

But unfortunately it doesn't work. It doesn't do the job that it's intended to used for. You can plug in maybe all your kitchen appliances. The kitchens are the worst because obviously if you've got your toaster, your kettle, all the things that actually pull current, that if you've got 32 amp ring circuit in there, you're gonna more than likely use a 30 mps of the tumble dryer, the washing machine, the dishwasher, all the have appliances are, can possibly be on at the same.

But they might have got an electrician that come in there and says, yeah, I can do this for a lot cheaper. And he's just maybe spurred off of a spur that was already there. So he's maybe caught fire or maybe gone faulty. Any reason for a number of reasons that it just doesn't work. So you get called up as an electrician to sort it out because maybe you were expensive the first time around and didn't actually do the job, but they were open.

You'd be able to fix it for 50. And like I say, when it's too late, that customer realizes this is why you are maybe 200 quid more expensive. and when they ask me to sort of match the other guy's quote, obviously you don't do it. You don't, I don't want to do price match. I don't do price match for other electricians.

If some electrician comes along and says, Hey, I can do it for 10 pound cheaper, well let that guy do it for turn 10 pound cheaper. You'll, uh, realize one day why is doing it 10 pound cheaper? It Bob not using the right kit. It's not using. Like proper kit. That'll probably last. I always tell customers I do a job to last, not just for to work at the same time, not for work until I've left the front door.

I do it to work and if there's a problem, you can call me up. Cuz as I always explain to a customer, if you are not happy to do, for me to do this work for maybe 500 pounds, there's gonna be someone down the road that. That someone else that phones me up, a phone rings constantly all day. So the more quotes you put out, the more quality customers that you're gonna get that will see the value in your work.

And then what you're doing, the electric electrical installation, what you're doing, and there is electricians out there that will just undercut to get the job cause they want to get the job. They're not necessarily gone into sort of the detail of when they go there, they look at the job and they actually sit back at home and detail a quote out, say right, how much cable they're gonna use.

What boxes are gonna be used, what kit are gonna use, they detail out the quote, but then you send that to the customer and the customer will use your. with other electricians, and if your coat says 500 pound another electrician or trade toman, whoever, sometimes I don't even believe their electricians will come along and say, right, that says 500 pound, I'll do it for 450.

There we go, make safety 50 quid straight away. They even look at the job, they're not even interested. They just want to get the job to get the 450 quid off them, and , those sort of people are more than likely gonna go to the customer. Right? Yeah. I need a cash up front to get materials. Well, in my.

You don't need the cash up front for a job. I've never asked for the full amount of material, cash up front cuz you got a account of wholesalers and you don't pay the bill for sort of 30 days. So I'll never ask for, like, maybe if the job's 500 pound, but I need 300 pounds to start. No, it, it seems a bit cheeky to do that.

I'd rather get the job started, get materials on site so they actually see the value in what they're buying from you than maybe ask for a part payment. And if it's a big job, it's to rewire you. You'll explain to 'em this stage payments first fix, and then obviously second fix. That'll be the remainder of , the quote or the invoice or the job sort of thing to pay.

So even if you're just starting out as your own business, as an electrician, don't start out cheap, especially not too cheap. Cause the problem with that is if you start out cheap for some job, that person will promote you to their family and friends, definitely. You'll think fantastic, but they won't say, this is a good electrician.

He does a good job. They'll say, this guy do it. He is well cheap. So you'll be known as a cheap electrician. You'll get people. Phone you up for cheap jobs and it can easily spiral outta control because yeah, you'll have plenty of work. You'll make say 20 quid here, 50 quid there, a hundred pound there. But then when you add it up at the end of the day, you think I'll run around like a.

Bloody nightmare all day and not actually made a good amount of money. Like any electrician that's sort of not charging themselves out as 20 pound an hour or more, basically you're not making enough money as an electrician. You, you might as well go get a job in a factory and push a pallet truck round all day where you haven't got nothing to worry about.

No comebacks, she's just working for someone. Cause I think they get paid around 20 grand a year just to do. If you're gonna build a business as an electrician, you need to start, as you mean to go on. And unfortunately, , this type of thing is not taught in college about what to charge or how to build a business or how to deal with customers because in college they just teach you how to do the job.

And that's obviously the main thing of what you want. You need to be able to get paid, so you need how to learn how to do the job, but how to start a business. Is something that I sort of missed out on, I think, and had to learn the hard way as growing over 20. And with that, I would recommend stating straight away, what's your minimum charge?

What is your minimum charge? To , turn up, say that's 50 quid. It'll cost me to come to that property to fault find. Because if you turn up for 10 minutes for an hour, it's still gonna cost you the same amount. It's 50 quid to get there. Get your tools out, get in the van and let them know as well. Let a customer know that you'll be.

For an hour, but after that, an additional hour is 30 pound more. Because you don't know how long the faults gonna take you. You don't know how long it's going to take to repair. Obviously, if you're there for 10 minutes, you can say to them, right, it's 50 quid, and I'll tell you, you need a new cooker, or you need a new cooker circuit, or the ring main's faulty and this is what I need to do to rewire it.

You can tell them the fault. But, um, nine times outta 10, a customer is happy for that information and , to cost them, , 50 pounds for to know that. And it does happen quite often when you go to a job and you can fix that problem within minutes. And it does happen , all the time, let's be honest.

But all the customers see the value in that 50 pound because they, they didn't have a clue what to do. And to be fair, I don't blame them with a house full of maybe kids, pets, animals. And they're not an electrician. They don't know what they're doing. They don't, they, A lot of people say, I'm not larger in electrics.

Well, I don't blame you, mate. It's exactly the same for me. I do. Touch anything to do with gas, I'll fit a tap here and there. Or maybe have a go radiator. To be honest with you, I'd rather pay a plumber to do it cause I do a 10 times better job, but I won't play around with gas or anything cause it's dangerous.

I'm not trained in that. I don't know how to seal gas properly. I haven't got the right kit to test if there's a leak. And it's exactly the same for electricians. If you think of it like this, say your van has got a fault on it and it stopped working, you think maybe, yeah, I know a little bit an about engine so I can have enough that I can do enough to get this, uh, vehicle going again.

So you spend about a day taking that engine to bits, looking for that fault. And then you give up sort of thing. So you give it to a mechanic to take a look at it. They turn up with their 10,000 pound piece of kit and plug it in and that kit will tell them exactly what's wrong, so they're know where to look and they're go to a sensor, unplug it, plug a new one in, and it's cost you 50 pound for them to fault find and 20 pound for the new sensor that they just plugged in.

Well, how much time would that save you in the long. And it's exactly the same for an electrician. Cause I've personally learned that lesson in the, the hard way sort of thing where I've taken cars and vans to bits without calling a mechanic. And then when I eventually do call a mechanic, it takes 'em 20 minutes to fix.

Just call a professional for the job. You'll get it done right and you'll get it done properly. Because electricians are exactly the same. If you know what you're doing and you've got the right kit and you know you've got the knowledge cuz you've been trained to use that kit, well that's gonna be priceless.

And doing jobs for people who understand this and how it works, that's the type of customers you want to deal with all the time. That's what type of customers you want to fill up your customer base with and keep working for. And they'll tell other , family and friends that yeah, this electricity knows his stuff.

He fixes it. They won't talk about how much it costs or anything because it won't matter. They won't care. That's the sort of customers you wanna retract into your business. I think it's an ongoing joke with maybe some family and friends. Well, I see it as a joke anyway cause I don't take it to heart. But they always say like, Ben's a bloody rip off.

Yeah, I agree. You don't have to call me. There is a lot of electricians out there, other electricians out there that you can call to do the job and they'll do the job for you. It is fine, but we'll happily sit at home. And watch TV or walk the dog. But no, that phone keeps ringing. And then every day there'll be electrical problems that need fixing, and there'll be other people out there.

If someone says, Ben, can you do this for a 10 or do this at 20 quid? Sorry mate. There's a guy down the road that will pay me what I'm actually worth and what I've actually trained all these years to do. So no, I'm not gonna do things for 20 quid or 30 quid or a cup of tea. It doesn't work like that. It's a.

However, when starting out your own electrical business, I wouldn't recommend sort of charging top money for your work straightaway. Obviously, never charge less than 20 pound an hour because. It's pointless you've been doing this to start with anyway, but also make it clear it what it costs for you to turn up and do the work.

Make that completely clear to the customer straight away. Cause there's nothing worse than finishing a job only for the customer to say, I didn't think it would cost that much. I haven't got as much money. Some people say that cuz they know you've just fixed it as well half the time. So you wanna state straight away, what's it gonna cost for you to do that job?

Back in the day, a long time ago, I did a, a fitted a cooker for someone. I told him it, it cost a 45 pound for me to pull the old cooker out while the new one in, make sure it is fine, test the supply, make sure it is in six mill, not just plugged in, just obviously to do it properly. So I went around there.

I, she obviously knew it was gonna cost 45 pounds to do the job and I fitted the new cooker. And when I'd. She said, I ain't got any money Ben. I thought what I told you how much it was gonna cost. , she didn't pay me. She hasn't paid me to this day. This was sort of 15 years ago. I've never done a job for that lady once again.

But these are the sort of customers you don't want to attract. And I don't know why she assumed that I would do it for nothing. And she didn't even have any money. It's, you look back at it now, it was funny. It's one of them things. But I've learned the lesson and she obviously never got me to rewire a house and at the end of that saying, I haven't got you five grand, which was fantastic.

So these are the lessons you learn along the way. But lessons that I'm here to say don't fall for that trap, cuz it happens all the time. But I have got a template inside of my Facebook group that I send to new costume. And I asked for a 10% deposit, and that confirms that they understand how much that invoice is gonna be and how much the job's gonna cost, and it'll stand up in court later on because obviously they've seen that in that quote, they've paid you the 10% so they know exactly they've, they've read it.

They know how much it's gonna cost. So there's, there's no argument towards the end of it, basically. That's the whole reason I do that. Obviously that's only for new customers. Cause once you build a relationship with a customer, and sometimes some customers are even offery to pay you the full amount up front.

And if you've got plenty of customers over time, they don't even ask for a quote. They just say, Ben, can you come and do this? We need this doing. And that's the sort of customer relationship you want with customers. I think, in my opinion, that's what I want. I don't want to have to sit here and do a quote to say, ah, yeah, you're doing your kitchen.

This is what it's gonna cost us. We're gonna do a lot of people just say, Ben, turn up. Get it done. Pay you whatever it costs. I know you, they know, they trust you, that you're not gonna take the mick or make stupid amount of money out. They know what. A relationship you've got with them. They know what it's gonna cost sort of thing.

However, not many companies pay you the jrb rate. I think that's for onsite, maybe. I'm not sure. I haven't worked onsite on a building site for a lot of years now, so I'm not a hundred percent sure what. Electricians get paid on site, but a lot of companies, they see the value in electrician and , they'll pay them good rates for electrician to work for their company.

And after a little Google, the average electrician in the UK is , paid around 20 pound, 46 an hour. And obviously this is depending on experience that they have and the qualifications and obviously location of where they're working, cuz London gets some good rates as I noticed. I'd always recommend starting upon your own business though, cuz whether you are self-employed, subcontractor, or you're building a business for yourself, having your own customer base and not having to work for a boss or answer to a boss is the best way forward, I think for anybody.

So I hope this podcast has helped you figure out how much you should be charging as an electrician for customers. And if you are making around 20 grand a year as a fully qualified electrician, you may as well go work in a sohu market. Cuz I think they paid just as good and taking the right steps to grow an electrical business is what you need to do.

Let's start off from the beginning and start off how you mean to go on. I talk about some of these great ideas that I've have worked out for me over , the 20 years of being an electrician, and I've even got some downloads to help you out too. All inside of the toolbox talks for electricians group on Facebook.

So check the link in the show notes below, and come and join where I help electricians with the tools and skills they need to reduce stress, gain back time, and of course, earn more money. So until next time, I'll see you again.