Day rate dilutions
Many people online proclaim insane day rates, which spark endless debates on TikTok. You may not like TikTok (or know about it), but it’s one of the best ways you can listen to tradesmen talk freely about money. Here is a list of day rates for all levels of skill within a landscaping firm. These are figures I would actually pay.
As I’ve stated before, day rates are a bad idea. I would advise a fixed contract for a job so there are no surprises. However, you can use this information to your advantage to try to figure out if you’re underpaying or overpaying a landscaper. They will use these rates to pay their own workers at a fixed price. Once you work out the labour, you can add materials and profit.
Prices shown for the Bristol area.
Prices in London will be 20 – 40% higher.
Highly skilled landscaper and designer (boss wages)- £250 per day
- This is usually the person who submits the quote
- They should be professional and courteous
- They should have a wide range of skills
- They should manage all materials and labour
- They resolve any issues throughout the build
- They should have more than 10 years of experience
Skilled landscaper (second in command) – £200 per day
- They should have a good range of skills
- They should keep the site running if the boss is not there
- They should have more than 5 years of experience
Semi-skilled landscaper (up and coming) £120 -£150 per day
- They should have some skills
- They are learning on the job
- They should help with labouring work
- They should have more than 2 years of experience
Labourer (Non-skilled) £100 per day
- They are there to move things from A to B
- They have very few or no skills
- They may not have any experience
This list is honest and realistic, unlike many online opinions. It is a reliable source of information for any homeowner looking for landscaping costs.
In most cases, Landscapers work as a team of three. This usually equates to a day rate of £450 per day. (2025) This way, you can see that if a job takes 2 weeks. That’s a labour cost of £4,500. (10 working days), and don’t forget that the weather can affect timescales.
Now, assuming that you haven’t tried a day rate and supply the materials yourself. You will have picked a super-experienced landscaper to carry out your project. To make any sense of the question of ‘How much should I pay a landscaper’, we need to use a baseline. We need to use a common example of a normal garden project. So let’s break it down.
You have a 5-meter-wide garden that’s 10 meters long. Let’s put down a porcelain patio by the back door. The patio goes across the full width (5m) and is 4 meters deep. That’s a 20m² patio. Now, let’s add a new lawn and new fences all around. No garden is complete without an alternative area to relax, so let’s stick a 3m² pergola on the rear left corner with gravel underneath. Let’s also add a cobble mowing edge to the lawn to keep things easy to maintain.
Recap – 50m² Garden
- 20m² Porcelain patio
- 25m of fencing (Feather board)
- 27m² Lawn
- 3m² gravel
- 3m² pergola
- 30m of cobble edging (approximately)
Quotation (rough prices)
Materials
Mini digger hire £250
Skips £700
Scalpings/Type 1 £750
Fencing £1,250
Cobbles £300
Resin jointing compound £200
Pergola £500
Gravel £150
Paving (all materials) £2500
Topsoil £600
Turf £200
Sundries £100
Total £7500
Now let’s work out the Labour, day by day, at a rate of £450 per day.
Labour
Day 1 – Bring tools to site, dismantle existing fence and remove waste
Day 2 – Install all fence posts and rails for feather boarding
Day 3 – Install feather boards
Day 4 – Excavate patio area and skim lawn area. Move all waste into skips
Day 5 – Build pergola
Day 6 – Dig foundations and lay cobble edge
Day 7 – Point cobble edge and lay gravel under pergola
Day 8 – Fill proposed lawn area with topsoil and lay turf
Days 9,10,11,12 – Lay patio
Day 13 – Extra day to catch up with any unexpected problems
Day 14 – Leave the site clean and tidy
Total (14 days @ £450 per day) £6,300
Subtotal £13,800
VAT (if applicable) £2,760
Total £16,560
Are you shocked at that price? Don’t worry, most people are. Landscaping is the most misunderstood trade of all, in my opinion and needs some serious light shed upon it. As I’ve stated before. Half of the work is done underground and is often overlooked.
Here’s my ultimate advice
When considering the question ‘How much should I really pay a landscape’, I hope you can use this guide to make more sense of their quotation. Please study it and try to understand the amount of effort and material required to carry out the job. If you receive quotations that don’t briefly explain the processes that I’ve listed, ask them about it. If the price is lower than expected, that might be because of miscommunication, so go through it with them. The more you understand about landscaping, the more confident you can be about choosing a quote. The price should always be fair for the client and the contractor. It’s a very fine balance between cost, communication and competency.
By Rick Labbẽ – GardenWise founder
Design – Insight – Guidance
