Freelance Builder Pay Trends: April 2017

Hudson Contract delivers the most accurate indications of pay trends across the construction industry, using payroll data for over 2,200 construction companies to publish the average pay for a spectrum of 17 different trades now split across ten regions.

There’s been a dramatic fall in earnings since last month – down in every region and by 5% on average.  And yet, appearances can be deceptive.

Hudson Contract Managing Director Ian Anfield explains:  “There’s less cause for concern than you might imagine just by looking at the raw data.  You have to take into account that there were only eighteen traditional working days during April, compared to twenty-three in March and twenty in February. So the earnings dive is simply a consequence of the Easter break coupled with school holidays rather than anything else.  

“It’s also a reminder that – unlike their PAYE counterparts whose March earnings will have been unaffected – freelancers only earn when they’re at work, and there’s no entitlement to holiday pay.”

National Weekly Average Earnings April 2017: £801

To view our interactive pay trends map click here

Individual Trades: Winners and Losers:

So far as the trades are concerned – and this is highly unusual – there are no winners this month.  Hardest hit are steel and timber frame erectors and surfacing contractors with decreases of 18% and 11% respectively.

Further evidence that the earnings decline is a temporary blip comes by way of the latest Markit/CIPS UK Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index, which reports growth soared to a four-month high during April.

Key reason for the continued expansion was put down to greater workloads, with civil engineering, the leading sector performer, growing at its fastest rate in over a year.  House-building growth also hit a high for 2017.  

Hudson Contract’s ‘Window on the Construction Industry’ gives you hard figures and data that is not available from any other source, with pay averages that reflect the amounts paid by a sample number of businesses – large and small – to specific trades during April 2017.