Electrician Pricing: What to Charge in 2026

Electrician rates have risen steadily over the past three years as demand for EV charger installations, solar PV work, and EICR testing has grown while the number of qualified electricians has remained relatively flat. In 2026, a qualified electrician in the UK typically charges about £45 to £60 per hour, with an average of roughly £50: in line with Checkatrade's 2026 guide. Rates vary significantly by region: London and the South East command a premium of £70–£90 per hour, while the North and Wales sit at the lower end.

Region	Typical Hourly Rate
London	£70–£90/hr
South East	£60–£80/hr
South West	£55–£70/hr
Midlands	£50–£65/hr
North West	£48–£65/hr
North East	£45–£60/hr
Scotland	£50–£65/hr
Wales	£45–£60/hr

These are rates charged to customers: not what an employed electrician earns. Self-employed and company-owner rates need to cover all business costs: van, insurance, tools, certification fees, marketing, and tax. A rate that looks high to a customer is often modest once overhead is factored in.

Beyond hourly rates, most electricians price common jobs at a fixed or package rate. This gives customers certainty and rewards your efficiency: the faster you complete a job you've done hundreds of times, the more you earn per hour.

Typical prices for common jobs in 2026, reconciled to Checkatrade's published cost guides (parts and labour, ex-VAT):

• Consumer unit replacement: £350–£800, averaging around £485 for a standard 10-way RCBO board (Checkatrade)
• EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report): £100–£250, averaging around £200 (Checkatrade)
• EV charger installation (7kW, inc. unit): around £1,000 installed, or around £500 if eligible for the government OZEV grant (Checkatrade)
• Additional double socket: £100–£200, averaging around £150 (Checkatrade)
• New light fitting or point: around £100 per fitting (MyJobQuote); a multi-point job scales up from there and is best quoted per job
• Full rewire (3-bed house): £4,450–£8,000 (Checkatrade)
• Partial rewire (single room): priced per job. Scope, access, and how much of the room's wiring can be reused vary too much for a reliable single figure
• Emergency callout / minimum charge: £80–£100 for the first hour, covering travel and basic fault-finding (Checkatrade)
• Smoke alarm installation (mains-linked, per alarm): £150–£250 (Checkatrade); most homes need two or three
• Outdoor socket installation: £140–£260+ including materials and labour (Checkatrade)

These figures reflect market rates across the UK; London and South East prices are typically at the upper end or above these ranges. Don't use these as your prices: use them as benchmarks to check whether you're broadly in line with the market. Your actual price should be based on your cost calculation (see the section below).

The most important number in your pricing isn't what you'd like to earn per hour: it's your minimum viable rate: the hourly rate below which you're losing money. Many electricians never calculate this and simply copy what they think the market charges. This leads to years of undercharging.

Here's a simple calculation. Start with your annual income target. What you need to take home after tax. Add your business costs:

• Van: insurance alone averages around £575/year nationally, rising to around £1,140/year in London (Quotezone); add finance, fuel, and maintenance on top
• Tools and equipment: an ongoing cost as kit wears out or gets stolen. Track your actual spend rather than guessing a figure
• Insurance (public liability, employer's if you have staff): varies hugely by cover level. A bare £1m public liability policy for a solo trader can run from around £115/year; add employer's liability, higher cover limits, and tools cover and it climbs well beyond that (Simply Business)
• Certification and membership fees (NICEIC/NAPIT, etc.): typically £500–£800/year
• Accountancy: £720–£2,000+/year for a limited company with payroll and VAT, less for a simple sole-trader return (GoForma)
• Materials (if you include in price): a real cost that varies job to job. Track it as a percentage of revenue in your own accounts rather than assuming a fixed share
• Marketing, software, phone: an ongoing cost. Size it to what you actually spend

Total your costs, add your income target, and divide by your billable hours. A sole trader working 45 weeks a year at 7 billable hours per day has about 1,575 billable hours. If your total costs plus income target is £90,000, you need to charge at least £57/hour just to break even on that target: before VAT.

This calculation often surprises electricians who've been charging £50–£55/hour, thinking they're doing well. Add VAT registration (if you're VAT registered) and the picture becomes clearer about why you need to charge what the market will bear.

Notice how much of that rate is swallowed by unbilled admin: quoting in the evenings, chasing customers who went quiet, waiting on invoices that arrive late or not at all. A Tradehand office team does that work for you, answering enquiries within the minute so more quotes turn into booked jobs, drafting and following up every quote, and chasing each invoice until it is paid. There is no monthly fee; your office team earns 5% of the invoices it chases and collects, so if it doesn't collect, you don't pay, where an office admin costs £25k+ a year whether or not the invoices land. Our guide on how to chase unpaid invoices covers the manual version.

How you handle materials significantly affects your overall margin. There are three main approaches, each with trade-offs:

• Labour only: You charge for your time; the customer buys materials. Simpler admin, but you lose out on materials margin and often get called back to fit parts that are wrong or inferior. Most common on large commercial projects
• Labour + materials at cost: You buy the materials and pass them on at what you paid. Protects the customer from over-specification but leaves you covering the admin, storage, and risk of materials changes. Rarely worth it for domestic work
• Labour + materials with markup: The most common approach for domestic work. You apply a markup on materials to cover your sourcing time, wastage, and the risk of price changes between quoting and delivery. Your materials margin should be visible in your accounts: it's a legitimate part of your revenue

Materials markup conventions vary widely by trade body, region, and merchant relationship, so there's no single UK-wide standard figure to quote here. Pick a rate that covers your actual sourcing time and risk, apply it consistently, and be ready to explain it: that the markup covers your sourcing time, transport, and the warranty you're providing on the installation. Most customers who understand the business accept this readily.

Keep a tight control on materials costs. Small wastage, untracked materials, and price creep at the merchant add up. Review your materials spend against job revenue monthly: your materials as a percentage of total revenue should be broadly consistent. If it's creeping up, either your markup is being eroded or you're losing track of what's going on site.

VAT has a significant impact on pricing strategy. Once you're VAT registered (mandatory above £90,000 turnover; voluntary below), you charge 20% VAT on top of your prices. This creates an immediate price jump for domestic customers, who can't reclaim VAT.

If you're approaching the VAT threshold and are primarily doing domestic work, think carefully about how to handle the transition:

• Don't absorb VAT: adding 20% VAT to your prices means you need to raise them. Many electricians delay VAT registration to avoid this, but once you cross the threshold it's mandatory and backdating VAT is painful
• Raise prices gradually before registering, if you can see registration on the horizon, start lifting prices 6–12 months beforehand so the VAT registration itself doesn't cause a sharp jump
• Target more commercial work: commercial clients are VAT registered and can reclaim VAT, making the 20% addition largely irrelevant to them

Always quote prices with VAT status clearly stated: either "ex-VAT" or "inc. VAT." Customer confusion about whether quoted prices include VAT is a common source of disputes and damages trust.

Most electricians know they should raise their prices but delay doing it out of fear of losing work. The reality: if you're consistently turning away more work than you'd like to, or if you're fully booked weeks in advance, your prices are probably too low. The market is telling you that you're offering good value. Take some of that value back as margin.

Practical approaches to raising prices:

• January is natural: A new year price increase is expected and accepted by most customers. "We've updated our prices for 2026" is a simple, non-confrontational explanation
• New customer rate vs existing: Raise prices for new enquiries first. Only raise prices for repeat customers once you've been charging new customers more for a few months and the conversion rate has held up
• Test with a subset of jobs: Try raising one common job type (e.g. EICRs) by 15% for a month. If conversion doesn't drop significantly, the market can bear it
• Raise by 10–15%, not 5%: Small incremental raises barely compensate for inflation. A 10–15% increase is meaningful and still easy to justify given cost increases

A word of caution: don't raise prices and simultaneously reduce quality or service. The customers who accept higher prices expect proportionally better service. Communication, punctuality, and finish quality all need to match your rate.