The £4 Per Hour Tradesman: Why Some Business Owners Would Earn More Working For Someone Else

How much should a tradesmen earn?

Turnover is vanity. But when it comes to running a trade business, many people ask how much should a tradesman earn per hour to ensure their efforts are truly worthwhile.

Profit is sanity.

But there is another number most trades business owners never calculate.

What are you actually earning per hour?

Not what you turn over.

Not what your business invoices.

Not what you tell people the company does.

What are you personally taking home once everything is paid, divided by the hours you are putting in?

Because when you do that calculation properly, it can be frightening.

The £4 Per Hour Business Owner

I worked with a tradesman who was running what looked, from the outside, like a decent business.

He had work coming in.

He had staff.

He had vans.

He had customers.

He had all the stress that comes with running a trade business.

But he was working around 60 hours every week and paying himself just £1,050 per month.

That is £12,600 per year.

When we divided that by the 60 hours he was working every week, he was effectively earning around £4 per hour.

Read that again.

A skilled trades business owner, carrying all the risk, all the customer problems, all the staff issues and all the responsibility, was earning around £4 per hour.

Some of his staff were earning more than he was.

That is not a business.

That is a stressful job with no clocking off time.

The Problem Is More Common Than You Think

This was the lowest hourly figure I have personally seen from a TradeCoach client, but the situation itself is not unusual.

I speak to tradesmen every week who are turning over £200k, £500k and sometimes far more.

They are busy.

Their diary is full.

Their phone never stops.

They have staff, vans and jobs everywhere.

Yet when we look at what is actually left after wages, materials, vehicles, overheads, mistakes, discounts, tax and everything else, there is barely anything left for the owner.

They are working harder than they ever did as an employee.

They are taking more risk than they ever did as an employee.

And in some cases, they are earning less than they would if they simply got a job working for someone else.

That is a horrible truth, but it is one worth facing.

Why This Happens

It is rarely because the owner is lazy.

Usually, it is the opposite.

They work too hard.

They say yes to everything.

They undercharge because they are scared of losing jobs.

They do the quotes.

They answer the calls.

They deal with complaints.

They order materials.

They manage the team.

They fix mistakes.

They chase payments.

They work all day, then finish admin from the kitchen table late at night.

And because they are so busy keeping the business alive, they never get the time to step back and fix the things that are actually causing the problem.

Poor pricing

Most trades business owners are not charging enough.

Not because they are bad at their trade, but because they have not added enough value around the work.

You cannot simply throw 30% onto a quote and hope for the best.

You need better positioning, better branding, better communication, a better customer journey and more confidence in the value you provide.

No systems

If every quote, customer, job, invoice, decision and problem has to go through you, then you do not have a business.

You have a job where everyone reports to you.

Systems are what allow work to be completed properly without you being involved in every tiny detail.

No profit to hire help

This creates the vicious circle.

You cannot bring people in because there is not enough profit.

But there is not enough profit because you are doing everything yourself.

You are too busy on the tools to improve the business.

And because you cannot improve the business, you stay stuck on the tools.

Being busy instead of being profitable

A full diary does not automatically mean a good business.

Some of the busiest tradesmen I meet are the least profitable.

They are doing too much work for the wrong customers, at the wrong price, with too little structure around them.

Busy can look good from the outside.

But busy without profit is just exhaustion.

Do Your Own £ Per Hour Calculation

Take what you paid yourself in the last 12 months.

Include your salary, dividends and any money you genuinely took from the business personally.

Then divide it by the total hours you worked.

Be honest.

Include:

Working on site.

Quoting.

Driving.

Taking calls.

Admin.

Ordering materials.

Chasing payments.

Working at night.

Working weekends.

That number tells you far more about your business than turnover ever will.

You might be pleasantly surprised.

Or you might realise that something has to change.

You Did Not Start A Business To Be The Lowest Paid Person In It

You started your business for more.

More money.

More control.

More freedom.

A better life for your family.

But none of that happens automatically just because you are good at your trade.

You need to learn how to run the business side properly.

You need to understand your numbers.

You need to price for profit.

You need systems.

You need the right people around you.

And at some point, you need to stop being the person who does everything.

The goal is not to work less because you are lazy.

The goal is to stop wasting your time on work that somebody else could do.

Your job as the owner is to build the business.

Not be trapped inside it forever.

The Good News

The £4 per hour tradesman I mentioned earlier did not stay there.

Once we fixed pricing, added value, introduced systems and started building a team around him, everything changed.

He started earning more.

He started working less.

The business became more profitable.

And he finally had the space to think like an owner instead of a stressed tradesman trying to survive another week.

That is possible for you too.

But only once you are honest about where you are now.

Could You Earn More Working For Someone Else?

Maybe.

But that does not mean you should give up on your business.

It means your business needs to start paying you properly.

If you are working long hours, carrying everything yourself and wondering where all the money goes, book a free strategy call.

We will look at where your business is leaking time, profit and opportunity, then work out what needs to change first.

Book your free strategy call:
https://calendly.com/tradecoach/tradesmen-20-minute-strategy-call

Or take a look at the Off The Tools Programme:
https://www.tradecoach.co.uk/course

Own a business. Not a job.