rookie day rate?

[Tom10]

Like alot of you are saying alot depends on where you are based, if i get a climber in for a day to help me i pay £100 day rate with his own climbing kit and top handle, or a groundie who just turns up with his own ppe and his lunch lol about £80 a day! im based around harrogate area!! There is alot of good climbers willing to work for this in my area any more and i think its difficult to win jobs!!

 

This seems strange, like has been said things vary from area to area but your contrast seems wrong (or wrong as I perceive it)

 

Your £80 a day for a decent groundie seems sensible and pretty average for a good guy on the ground...

 

But £100 for a freelance climber? If i could only get £100 freelancing then id put my climbing kit in the shed along with the top handle and go out for £20 less a day and work on the ground!

 

IMO a good efficient climber is worth £140 / £150 of anyones money...

 

But - as you say, if youve got a lot of good climbers around you fighting for the work then why pay more than you need to I guess...

[Tom10]

You're right, donkey work is donkey work, but I'm refusing to do down the route of bunging someone £50 cash for a day of donkey work to subsidise their job seekers allowance or whatever. As far as I'm concerned, if the customer is happy with my price that's cool because within that price I've included good money for the people doing the work. If the customer isn't happy with my price then I'll discuss it with them to see if job spec can be changed to reduce it, or someone else can do it.

 

Agree.

[Czlowiek Drzewo]

depends what you class as a rookie and what they do...

 

please continue...

 

Rookie means beginner. doh!

[Pedroski]

Rookie means beginner. doh!

 

There are different degrees of rookie though. There are rookies from the point of view of having no experience of tree work but have loads of experience of practical manual work and can turn their hands to tree work, and pick things up straight away. These are worth money. Then there are rookies who have no experience of anything at all, but the keen ones of these are also worth good money.

 

The people not worth money are those who talk on their phones, who don't respond when you talk to them, who whine if something is hard work, who don't bother getting to the job on time, who turn up in trainers - but while a lot of these are rookies with no experience of the real world, a lot are also highly experienced lazy beggars. I had a highly experienced bloke on a job a while back who was more interested in talking on his phone arranging other jobs, and spending an hour sharpening a chain, and it took him till lunchtime just to get up the tree. Whereas another bloke I hired got to the job before me, had all his stuff sorted out, we discussed the job and he was up the tree in the blink of an eye.

[Bald Monkey]

started on £50 a day in 2009 and then over the past year or so depending who I work for I've been getting between £60 - £90 a day. Obviously I would like the top end of that each day but you have got to take the work when you get it and everyone doesn't pay the same unfortunately. I know if I argued with the the guy that pays me £60 about upping the rate he would just kick me into touch and get some college leaver that will work for less and I loose the chance of earning. It's rubbish but unfortunately thats life.

 

I'm not climbing, just grounding. I'm not greedy but I think for the amount of work you put into a day you should be worth at least between £80 - 100 a day after at least a years experience, but thats not always easy to get and you have to take what is offered or get nothing!

[hamdogg]

This seems strange, like has been said things vary from area to area but your contrast seems wrong (or wrong as I perceive it)

 

Your £80 a day for a decent groundie seems sensible and pretty average for a good guy on the ground...

 

But £100 for a freelance climber? If i could only get £100 freelancing then id put my climbing kit in the shed along with the top handle and go out for £20 less a day and work on the ground!

 

IMO a good efficient climber is worth £140 / £150 of anyones money...

But - as you say, if youve got a lot of good climbers around you fighting for the work then why pay more than you need to I guess...

 

I know what your saying a good freelance climber maybe deserves more than£100 a day but it then gets difficult to win work and make a profit when there are so many idiots out there willing to work for cost!!!

[Pedroski]

I know what your saying a good freelance climber maybe deserves more than£100 a day but it then gets difficult to win work and make a profit when there are so many idiots out there willing to work for cost!!!

 

But here in lies the problem. How many people getting £50/day or £60/day are actually making a profit? Take out costs of PPE, tools, fuel, vehicle costs, insurance etc etc, and I put money on a lot of these people ending up making a loss and not even covering costs. They'd be better off getting tenner here and a tenner there for washing cars, or delivering news papers.

[Rich2484]

That's why I've got some extra work here and there. Mowing gardens, looking after a stables once a week doing maintenance. Keeps the earnings topped up.

 

In this day and age you have to get what work you can or it's off to the dole queue......

[BarneyH]

So, in conclusion he should be looking to earn between £60 and £80 as a respectable starting wage, while not being pushy and losing work, neither should he work for much less because that devalues the industry?

 

An interesting debate, and one which needs to be had IMO.

Edited April 10, 2012 by BarneyH
didnt say all i wanted to say

[SAM66S]

£70-£80 depending on ability & speed as well as the gear you are providing, saw etc