Brickies wage?!

Deadly Ferret · 12 Sep 2008 at 14:33

lemonkettaz said:
Im sure if steel erectors can make £1000 a week.. surely brickies can?

mind you steel erectors got to work 7days and the digs money is with that working away.

Nah, I know an erector who's on £200/day net and just working on a small, Mon-Fri site building a five storey extension onto the side of a college. He has 20yrs experience though, and works for a small company that's mostly a group of old friends. He gets a bit more when he's on bigger projects.

I've been thinking of joining up with them, they offered me a start on £130/day which would go up to £180 after a year's "practice". It would mean a bit of a pay cut initially, but then a bit of an increase when it goes up. Plus it would be a big change, which is something I fancy.

They've always had trouble recruiting & expanding. Most people don't have the bottle to do the job because it's not just working at height, but effectively having to walk the plank at height (not right off the end of course!

).

PS: I've heard of some erectors on big projects in the Docklands getting £2k/week, and that's not Chinese Whispers but some lads a friend knew directly.

SB118 · 12 Sep 2008 at 14:42

Hedge said:
over a grand for a 3 bedroom house rewire is a good price

Had a word with him today, by "over a grand", he meant just over 2 :eek:

Jez · 12 Sep 2008 at 14:48

SB118 said:
Had a word with him today, by "over a grand", he meant just over 2

Probably 10 man days in that, plus materials. How much did you expect it to be? By pure numbers i'd expect it to be 2 grand+

SB118 · 12 Sep 2008 at 14:54

Never even guessed at, i just get the call "i need a hand with something..."

But if i ever buy a house i'm going to strip the wiring out and weigh it in, there's bloody miles of the stuff!

rjk · 12 Sep 2008 at 16:26

my girlfriends dad is a brickie

he is loaded

j0s · 12 Sep 2008 at 16:29

In the current housing market conditions with some house builders laying off staff, I wouldn't want to be a brickie in this financial climate

BF-Bert · 12 Sep 2008 at 16:46

A lot of the £1000 a week quoted is "site" talk, everyone likes to make out they earn more than the others. If they were on that amount of money they'd all drive nice cars from the nice houses in the nicest parts of town and I bet they don't. In reality a squad of 2 brickies will make £2000/week on priced work during the summer when hours are long and weather is dry. What they don't tell you is that along with them is a labourer that has to be paid out of the £2000 and that if it rains for a week or is too cold they go home with £0. Construction is a feast or famine industry.

Anders0n · 12 Sep 2008 at 17:08

BF-Bert said:
A lot of the £1000 a week quoted is "site" talk, everyone likes to make out they earn more than the others. If they were on that amount of money they'd all drive nice cars from the nice houses in the nicest parts of town and I bet they don't. In reality a squad of 2 brickies will make £2000/week on priced work during the summer when hours are long and weather is dry. What they don't tell you is that along with them is a labourer that has to be paid out of the £2000 and that if it rains for a week or is too cold they go home with £0. Construction is a feast or famine industry.

Just what I was going to post.

Point well made.

ash_91 · 12 Sep 2008 at 17:29

SB118 said:
Had a word with him today, by "over a grand", he meant just over 2

Just had ours done, took 3 and a half days, was meant to be 3 grand but the bloke that did it is our next door neigbours son so was 1.5k.

SB118 · 12 Sep 2008 at 17:55

ash_91;12490144. said:
... took 3 and a half days ...

Didn't the guy sleep? :eek:

Must admit this job seems to be growing. They're swapping rooms around and taking down walls. the kitchen & dining room is now the living room and the living room is now the kitchen/diner. And the bathroom is going into an extension, so there is now a 3rd bedroom. And the kitchen now has two lighting circuits (downlights & pendants) which are both operated from either end of the kitchen, you can operate the hallway lights from the living room, etc, etc. joy

Jez · 12 Sep 2008 at 18:55

ash_91 said:
Just had ours done, took 3 and a half days, was meant to be 3 grand but the bloke that did it is our next door neigbours son so was 1.5k.

Wont have been a full job for 3.5man days and only £1500. Its one thing to change the consumer unit and all of the fittings, another altogether doing a fully spec'd rewire. I complete on a 3 bed house at the end of the month which i am going to have re-wired. Its a 10 man day job at least for a proper job, and will cost me more than £1500 even at uber mates rates.

cheets64 · 12 Sep 2008 at 19:05

Just got on to a two year full time plumbing course, only went apply 2 weeks ago and had a test today and passed so start next Wednesday only missed 3 days in the course so cant wait, did IT at college and basically was the wrong thing for me and totally misguided, refused to go to Uni for 3 years for a piece of paper.

Sinny · 12 Sep 2008 at 19:14

The good thing about a trade (which is what got me interested) was that you would never be out of work. If you get made redundant for whatever reason its fairly simple to put an add in the paper while you find employment.

cheets64 said:
Just got on to a two year full time plumbing course, only went apply 2 weeks ago and had a test today and passed so start next Wednesday only missed 3 days in the course so cant wait, did IT at college and basically was the wrong thing for me and totally misguided, refused to go to Uni for 3 years for a piece of paper.

Same situation as me then, except im doing an Electrical installation course at Capenhurst.

Jez · 12 Sep 2008 at 19:18

Don't blame either of you, its an excellent area to go into, and one which i would have done if the schooling system and my parents hadn't misguided me into uni. 3 of my best friends are all electricians, and they make a lot of money.

cheets64 · 12 Sep 2008 at 20:13

Jez said:
Don't blame either of you, its an excellent area to go into, and one which i would have done if the schooling system and my parents hadn't misguided me into uni. 3 of my best friends are all electricians, and they make a lot of money.

What do you do for a living.

Mains reason was, is that plumbing you can be doing all sorts of different jobs indoor and out and even move on to Corgi, plus opportunity to work abroad.

Jez · 12 Sep 2008 at 20:35

cheets64 said:
What do you do for a living.

Mains reason was, is that plumbing you can be doing all sorts of different jobs indoor and out and even move on to Corgi, plus opportunity to work abroad.

Indeed. The money is not in actually labouring mind, so once you have some experience do not think that this is the way to go. My friends run companies and employ people to do the labouring. Their job is to price up jobs/invoice them and sort out things like supply and generally overseeing the work.

Me, i am an IT contractor and run a business selling cars.

Anders0n · 12 Sep 2008 at 20:37

cheets64 said:
Just got on to a two year full time plumbing course, only went apply 2 weeks ago and had a test today and passed so start next Wednesday only missed 3 days in the course so cant wait, did IT at college and basically was the wrong thing for me and totally misguided, refused to go to Uni for 3 years for a piece of paper.

Same as me then, although I'm on my 2nd year.

It really is easy, we had a whole year to complete a few basic tasks in a folder for practical and the test paper for the theory exams is just basically the actual test in a different order, so to fail it you really have to be mentally challenged.

Next year we have a 2 week practical exams and then that's finished. More basic theory tests that you can't fail and that's it.

Unfortunately work isn't exactly plentiful atm. I've just had to have 3 weeks off, luckily I can afford to.

BF-Bert · 12 Sep 2008 at 20:44

Unfortunately when construction goes into decline its often the sub-contractors such as brickies, plumbers and electricians that suffer the most, jobs become tighter and tighter and main contractors will always manage to screw the price down on the sub-contractors while maintaining a good mark up for themselves not to mention the numerous material price increases that have occured over the past year..... many contracts last more than a year and the job prices can be fixed prior to the job starting. Tough times

Lethagized · 12 Sep 2008 at 21:00

Talking of bricks, anybody remember Yosser out of the late 70's, early 80's tv series 'The black stuff' When he was laying all those bricks really really badly, then headbutted the gaffer. lol

doublehelix2 · 12 Sep 2008 at 22:02

Jez said:
Indeed. The money is not in actually labouring mind, so once you have some experience do not think that this is the way to go. My friends run companies and employ people to do the labouring. Their job is to price up jobs/invoice them and sort out things like supply and generally overseeing the work.

Me, i am an IT contractor and run a business selling cars.

As a contractor surely you can make more money doing what you do than your Electrician friends?