Day Rate Calculator for UK Trades
A defensible day rate isn't a guess — it's your income target and your real overheads spread across the days you actually bill, plus a margin. Fill in your numbers; the rate updates as you type. Free, no signup, nothing leaves your browser.
What you want to earn
Annual business costs
What the business spends in a year whether or not you're on the tools.
Your year, honestly
8 bank holidays are already deducted. Billable share is the part of a working day actually on paying jobs — quoting, admin, travel and supplier runs eat the rest, and 70–80% is typical.
Profit on top
Margin the business keeps after paying you — the buffer that absorbs a quiet month, a van repair, or a job that overruns. 10–15% is a sensible floor; 0% means one bad week wipes you out.
Rates are what you charge before VAT. Anything below £287 a day and you are paying to go to work.
Why most day rates are too low
The classic mistake is working backwards from an employed salary: "£38,000 a year is about £730 a week, so £150 a day covers it." That sum silently assumes you bill five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, with a free van, free insurance and free tools. In reality a sole trader with 20 days' holiday, the 8 bank holidays, a few sick days and an honest 75% billable share bills around 160 days a year — and the van, tools, insurance and accountant come out of the rate too.
The structure this calculator uses: add your target income to your annual business costs, divide by your billable days for break-even, then add a profit margin so the business can absorb bad luck. If the resulting rate feels high against your market, the answer is rarely to cut the rate — it's to win work on presentation and speed instead of price. That's the argument in our guide to handling "your quote is too expensive", and it's what Speqly is for.
Charging by the job instead? Your day rate still matters — it's the labour line inside every quote. Our free quote template generator turns the rate into a professional PDF quotation, and the contractor quote guide covers the rest of the document.
Questions, answered
What day rate should a UK tradesperson charge?
Whatever covers your target income plus your business overheads across your real billable days, plus a profit margin — not what the tradesperson down the road charges. For most established sole trades that lands between £250 and £450 a day in 2026, but the honest answer comes from your own numbers, which is what this calculator works out.
Why not just divide my target salary by 260 working days?
Because you won't bill 260 days. Take off holiday, bank holidays and sick days, then remember that quoting, admin, travel and supplier runs eat 20–30% of what's left. Most sole traders bill 150–180 days a year — dividing by 260 is how people end up busy and broke.
Is the day rate before or after VAT?
Before VAT. If you're VAT registered you add 20% on top of this rate when you invoice; the VAT is never yours to keep, so it doesn't belong in the calculation.
Does this store my numbers anywhere?
No. Everything is calculated in your browser as you type — nothing is sent to our servers, stored, or seen by us.
What profit margin should I add on top of break-even?
10–15% is a sensible floor. Break-even means one van repair, one quiet fortnight or one underestimated job puts you into loss. The margin is the business's buffer — and eventually the fund that buys the next van without a loan.