How Much Does A Joiner Charge Per Hour In The UK?

How Much Does A Joiner Charge Per Hour In The UK?

If you like working with your hands and have a flair for creative design and how things work then joinery might be a career that you enjoy. However, when choosing the right career path, you want to be sure that you will be able to earn enough money to fund your lifestyle. There’s something of a perfect balance between earning enough and enjoying your job, right? But how much does a joiner charge per hour in the UK?

How much a joiner charges per hour in the UK will largely depend on several factors. Firstly, the level of experience of the joiner will come into play and secondly, your location is always going to be a determining factor. However, on average, you can expect to be able to charge around £25 per hour when working as a joiner. 

That said, if you’re working for an employer as opposed to offering self employed services, then the rate you receive per hour may not be quite as high. According to statistics based around 10,000 salaries of joiners in the UK, the average pay per hour is currently around £15. Of course, this can go up or down depending on experience and skill level. 

What Is The Average Wage For A Joiner?

Working as a joiner has the potential to bring in a favourable wage but how much you earn will depend on several things. What’s more is that you have to take into account that different studies yield different results in terms of what a joiner can earn in the UK. 

Take, for example, the average given by JobTed which tells us that joiners in the UK earn, on average, £13.60 per hour. However, according to payscale, that wage is much lower at just £12.27 per hour for a middle earning joiner. According to our research, we would expect a joiner to be earning around £15 per hour working for a company but when self-employed, you may be able to charge more per hour. Of course, you must factor in the running costs of your business as well as taxes.  

When we look at what a joiner can earn in a year, we see that the average varies wildly once again. According to the best average we could find, you might expect to earn in the range of £29,000 per year as a joiner. Although, those with less experience may start off on as little as £24,000 while more skilled joiners can expect to earn more; typically around £37,000 per year. 

Is being a Joiner Good Money?

Surprisingly, the average wage of a joiner falls below the current UK average wage, which sits at a little over £31,000 as of 2021. However, this is a figure that fluctuates year on year and when you consider that more experienced joiners are on a higher than average wage, you might consider this to be a relatively well paying job. 

What’s more interesting is that joiners and carpenters are among some of the most sought after skilled workers in the UK at the moment. The call for these kinds of workers has risen significantly in recent years so, while the wage might not be the highest in the country, there may be a chance for you to negotiate your salary according to the demand for work. 

How Much Can A Joiner Make?

The amount of money that you can successfully make working as a joiner will depend on how skilled you are, how much experience you have and your location. Joiners working in London and the South East are much more likely to receive a higher wage as is the case with most jobs in this higher paying part of the country. 

We have established that the average wage of a joiner could be anywhere between £24,000 and £37,000 per year but according to Reed, these figures could be much higher in certain parts of the country. For example, a joiner working in the Rugby area might expect to earn as much as £51,000 per year! That’s significantly higher than average. 

How Much Does An Apprentice Joiner Earn?

According to the UK government, the current minimum wage for an apprentice is £4.30 unless you are over the age of 19, in which case, you are entitled to the National Living Wage. This varies according to your age and checking the government website will tell you what you are entitled to. 

However, different employers may offer varying wages and the average hourly pay for an apprentice joiner in the UK currently stands at £8.93. That said, there are some apprentices, perhaps those with a little more experience and closer to qualifying who are earning up to and in excess of £12 per hour while on the other end of the scale, the lowest earning apprentice joiners are earning around £6.23 per hour. 

When we look at what this equates to over the course of a year, an apprentice joiner might expect to bring home an average salary of £17,414. This is far below the national average but when you consider that most apprentices will qualify in three years, it’s clear that there is the potential to earn much more in the near future. 

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Conclusion

A joiner is a woodworker who literally ‘joins’ wood and crafts items that will later be installed by a carpenter onsite. If you’ve been considering getting into joinery as a career, you’ll likely want to know what you can expect to earn. 

The average amount that a self employed joiner would charge per hour is £25 but this doesn’t factor in the costs that must come out of this such as supplies and taxes. When employed by a company, a joiner would earn £15 an hour, on average although there are cases that joiners are earning much more or much less than this according to their circumstances.