Rate Sorted
A decorator cutting in along a ceiling line with a brush, in an ordinary British hallway with dust sheets down and a stepladder up.

For decorators quoting by the hour

Painter and decorator hourly rate UK

The going rate works out at £33.33 an hour.

That is the £200 median day at six paid hours, or £25.00 at eight.

The directories publish a day rate. You divide it.

Every rate below divides a day rate modelled from five UK directories and official data.

£33.33an hour, the median at six paid hours
£25.00an hour, the same day at eight
£42.67an hour, what the sum asks for

The typical painter and decorator hourly rate in the UK is £33.33, on six paid hours.

At eight hours the same £200 day reads £25.00. Nothing about the work changed.

To take home £35,500 on ordinary costs, the sum asks for £42.67.

Quotable
All five UK trade directories that Rate Sorted models lead with a painter and decorator day rate, and the one hourly figure among them, Checkatrade's around £32, states no hours. The 2026 national median of £200 a day works out at £33.33 an hour on six paid hours, or £25.00 on eight.
What the market publishes
£200

A day rate. The median of five UK directories, which lead with the day, not the hour.

What you actually need
£42.67

Per paid hour, to clear £35,500 after 2026/27 tax on ordinary costs.

One of those is a market fact. The other is arithmetic on your own year.

Work out your own numberFree, no login, and nothing is stored unless you ask for the PDF.

Why is a decorator hourly rate so hard to pin down?

Because an hourly rate is a day rate with a private assumption divided into it.

Two decorators on the same £256 day can quote £42.67 and £32.00 an hour.

Neither is lying, and the customer cannot tell them apart.

One day rate, three hourly rates
The same £256 day, divided by the hours a decorator counts as paid.
The highlighted row is the divisor this site's model actually runs on.

Quote the bottom figure and work the top one.

You have handed over two hours a day for nothing.

That is £85.33 a day, or £17,067 across 200 paid days.

Quotable
Quoting a decorator hourly rate on an eight hour day while working six paid hours turns a £256 day rate into an effective £192, a loss of £17,067 a year over 200 billable days, on Rate Sorted's 2026 model.

Where that day rate comes from is the subject of the day rate argument in full.

This page only takes it apart.

Work out your own numberYour day rate first. The hour falls out of it.

What is the decorator hourly rate in my town?

Two numbers decide it, and only one of them is about your town.

Day rates run from £160 in Sunderland to £249 in London.

Hourly, the table below runs £20.00 to £41.50, a spread of 2.08 times.

Every modelled town, at six, seven and eight paid hours
31 towns, dearest first. Day rate from the model, hourly rates divided out of it.
31 towns have a page of their own and are linked in the table.

All 31 town rates, day and hourly

Dearest first, with the hourly figure at each divisor.

Modelled decorator day rate by town for 2026.

Each one is shown as the hourly rate it becomes at six, seven and eight paid hours in the day.

The six hour column is the one this site's model runs on.

Decorator day rate and hourly rate by UK town, 2026
TownDay rateSix hoursper hourSeven hoursper hourEight hoursper hour
London£249£41.50£35.57£31.13
Guildford£235£39.17£33.57£29.38
Oxford£229£38.17£32.71£28.63
Cambridge£226£37.67£32.29£28.25
Brighton£219£36.50£31.29£27.38
Bath£212£35.33£30.29£26.50
Reading£210£35.00£30.00£26.25
Bristol£206£34.33£29.43£25.75
Milton Keynes£206£34.33£29.43£25.75
Cheltenham£202£33.67£28.86£25.25
Edinburgh£202£33.67£28.86£25.25
York£195£32.50£27.86£24.38
Exeter£194£32.33£27.71£24.25
Portsmouth£194£32.33£27.71£24.25
Northampton£192£32.00£27.43£24.00
Southampton£191£31.83£27.29£23.88
Cardiff£189£31.50£27.00£23.63
Norwich£189£31.50£27.00£23.63
Manchester£188£31.33£26.86£23.50
Birmingham£186£31.00£26.57£23.25
Leeds£185£30.83£26.43£23.13
Coventry£182£30.33£26.00£22.75
Leicester£182£30.33£26.00£22.75
Glasgow£181£30.17£25.86£22.63
Sheffield£180£30.00£25.71£22.50
Derby£176£29.33£25.14£22.00
Liverpool£175£29.17£25.00£21.88
Newcastle£173£28.83£24.71£21.63
Nottingham£173£28.83£24.71£21.63
Stoke-on-Trent£168£28.00£24.00£21.00
Sunderland£160£26.67£22.86£20.00

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

Read one row across first. Then the column down.

A London decorator on eight hours quotes less per hour than a Sunderland one on six.

The town is not what beat them. The divisor is.

Quotable
Across 31 UK towns modelled by Rate Sorted for 2026, the decorator hourly rate ranges from £20.00 in Sunderland at eight paid hours to £41.50 in London at six, a spread of 2.08 times.
  • the Office for National StatisticsIts regional earnings data is one of the two inputs that pull these town rates apart.Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings
  • HM Land RegistryIts local house prices are the second input to the geography model behind every row above.UK House Price Index
The £39 Decorator Rate Book prices every job, writes the quote and the invoice, and puts the tax by.See what is in it

What should a decorator charge for half a day?

Half a day costs more than half a day. Travel does not halve.

More than half the day rate. Here is the arithmetic.

Half of £256 is £128.

The travelling, the setting up and the packing down happen once either way.

So a half day usually costs you the whole slot and pays you £128 less.

What a half day actually costs across a year
One half day a week, across the 46 weeks the model works.
A full day pays£256
Half the rate pays£128
One a week costs you£5,888

The day still carries £38 of costs whether you work two hours or six.

Those costs are covered in the first hour. Everything after that is tax and you.

Which is why the last hour of a full day is worth far more than the first.

Quotable
A decorator who charges half a day rate for a half day loses £128 of a £256 day, or £5,888 a year at one half day a week, because travel and set up costs do not halve. Rate Sorted 2026 model.

The take home figure every hourly rate here works towards is taxed at real 2026/27 rates.

According to gov.uk, Class 4 National Insurance runs alongside Income Tax on the same profit.

Self employed National Insurance rates

Put your own hours inFree, no login, and nothing is stored unless you ask for the PDF.

Should I quote by the hour at all?

Work the hour out for your costing sheet. Then quote the job.

Rarely, and never to a homeowner.

An hourly rate invites one question: how many hours will it take?

Answer it straight and you have capped your own price.

Answer it optimistically and you have just quoted a fixed price with extra steps.

Work the hour out for yourself. Quote the job.

Quotable
Rate Sorted's guidance for UK decorators is to calculate an hourly rate for internal costing only and quote by the job, because an hourly quote converts a price into an estimate of duration the customer can argue with.

What should I do about my hourly rate this week?

  1. Write your divisor downCount the hours a customer pays for in a day.If it is six, every hourly figure you have quoted on eight was £85.33 a day light.
  2. Work the hour out, then quote the job£42.67 an hour is for your costing sheet. The customer hears a price for the work.
  3. Put a floor under the half dayHalf of £256 is £128, and one a week costs £5,888 a year. Charge for the slot, not the hours.
  4. Give the callout a minimumThe day carries £38 of costs before you earn anything, so two hours at £42.67 is the floor, not the price.
Work out your own numberStart with the day rate. The divisor is yours to set.

The rest of the answer

The day rate page and the self employed tax page.

This page is the unit. The other two are the rate and the tax.

How much should a decorator charge?Where the day rate comes from, the spread across 31 towns, and the 200 paid days it divides by.Self employed painter and decorator hourly rateThe tax half. What your employer used to pay, and which statutory line you cross at which day rate.

Hourly rates for other trades

Common questions about the hour

£42.67
An hour, at the six paid hours the model runs on.
£20.00 to £41.50
The full range across 31 towns and three divisors.
£17,067
A year, given away by quoting on eight hours.
£38
Costs the day carries before you are paid anything.
What is the average hourly rate for a painter and decorator in the UK?

£33.33 an hour, from the £200 national median day rate at six paid hours.

The directories lead with a day rate.

Checkatrade prints an hourly figure, around £32, with no hours stated.

At eight it is £25.00, for exactly the same money.

How do I work out my hourly rate from my day rate?

Divide by the hours a customer pays for, not the hours you are out of the house.

The model runs on six paid hours in a working day.

So £256 becomes £42.67.

Travel, loading, cleaning and the trip to the merchant are not in that number.

Should I charge half a day rate for half a day?

Only if the other half sells. It almost never does.

Half of £256 is £128, so the day earns £128 less than a full one.

One of those a week costs £5,888 across the year.

The travel and the setting up happen once whether you are there two hours or eight.

What should I charge for a small callout?

At £42.67 an hour, two hours comes to £85.33.

The day carries £38 of costs whether it sells two hours or six.

So a callout has to clear that before a penny of it is earnings.

Price the slot you lose, not the time you spend.

Is a painter's hourly rate in the UK different to a decorator's?

Not in the published data.

UK directories rate the two as one trade.

The same national median of £200 a day sits behind both words.

At six paid hours that is £33.33 an hour either way.

If you charge above it, the work is what justifies that, not the word on the van.

Why does an hourly rate make me look expensive?

Because a homeowner compares it to a wage, and a wage is what is left after somebody else paid the bills.

£42.67 an hour sounds like a lot next to an hourly wage.

£256 for the day sounds like a price for a day's work.

Same money. One of them gets argued with.

Day rates: the median of five UK directories.Those are Checkatrade, HaMuch, MyBuilder, CostEstimator and MyJobQuote.Checkatrade also prints an hourly figure, around £32, with no hours stated.Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, the Office for National StatisticsUK House Price Index, HM Land RegistryTax: 2026/27 Income Tax and Class 4 National Insurance for a sole trader.gov.uk publishes the rates the engine runs.Hourly figures divide the day rate shown, so the arithmetic on this page can be checked by hand.Costs, days and paid hours: the calculator's default decorator.Yours will differ, which is the whole point of the tool.Rates reviewed October 2026 · Tax figures reviewed July 2026How we model these rates

Take this worked example away

The figures on this page as a one page PDF, built in your browser.

Put your own hours inFree, no login, and nothing is stored unless you ask for the PDF.
See what is in itThe £39 Decorator Rate Book helps you price jobs, plan tax and track unpaid invoices.

Reviewed on .

These figures use the same sums as the free calculator. The two always agree.