How much should I pay for a decorator?
The average day rate of a decorator in the UK in 2024 could be anywhere from £100 – £400 per day. Now that’s quite a price range, but it’s important to note the variables which impacts that figure.
Location
Location is the biggest factor in how much you’re likely to pay for a decorator. The closer proximity to London, the more you’re going to be paying. With a correlation in general to the cost of living to the price for a decorator.
Reputation & Demand
Reputation and demand are big drivers in price fluctuation. Like with most things, a greater demand for service or product, the greater the price spike is. It’s important to gather a number of quotations to compare against anomaly prices.
Scale of Work
This is an area where you may find a few decorators taking chances and quoting over the odds. There is a number of factors which may impact the price based on the scale of work:
- The job looks like it could be a tricky one. If there is a suspicion of problematic areas decorators will likely quote on the side of caution or maybe even opt for an hour price rate for specific jobs.
- Is the project beyond the scope of the decorator – you might receive a quote which is way beyond what you budgeted for.
- Is the project too small for someone to want to take on – I don’t believe any job is too small but like the above point, it wouldn’t be unheard of to receive an overpriced quote for a small job.
Other factors which contribute to the cost of a decorator
Paint
It comes as a surprise to most how much paint really does cost. Yes, you can buy some really cheap stuff, but that comes with its own issues. In another post I discuss where I would recommend buying paint from. I would strongly recommend that when it comes to paint for a project you let the decorator handle this. Why? That’s a post in itself but in brief; a decorator is likely to have a preference, something they know performs well, they’ve used it day in day out, they know how the paint flows. By allowing the decorator to handle supplying the paint it takes away any unexpected delays and I would hope in generally decorators aren’t trying to make a ridiculous amount of profit from supplying the paint.
Materials
There is probably a misconception of decorators not needing a lot of materials or tools to operate and the ones they have to be cheap, but times have changed. A decorator maybe operating a dustless setup, which could cost anywhere upwards of £2000 and that could be just the start of the reoccurring costs of brushes, rollers, tape, protection, filler, caulk the list goes on.
Insurance
I’m sure most have encountered what seems to be the ever increasing costs of insurance. I feel you, unfortunately decorators aren’t excluded from these rising costs which adds to the overall costs we have to operate with as a business ultimately. That could be car/van, equipment and business insurance, it seems as though now you need insurance for everything!
Key Takeaways
My first bit of advice would be to gather multiple quotes. More often than not, you’ll be able to identify a red flag. Why is one so much more / less than the others? They may be good reasoning as to why, ask for a quote breakdown if you’ve only received a figure, see if you would deem is reasonable without being insulting as to what they’re asking for.
I’d like to think when you hire a decorator you see it as an investment in work that’ll be around for years or even decades to come. Does the time and stress of doing it yourself weigh up favourably against working with a decorator to get a flawless finish? These are the questions you have to answer, but I hope this brief overview gives you an indication from a decorators point of view as the reasons behind some pricing but also a rough gauge of how much to expect to have to pay for a decorator in 2024.