Freelance Builder Pay Trends: June 2018

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.

Over the years, June has always been a consolidation month for freelance builders – and this time round is no exception.  Earnings are broadly speaking static, with marginal increases and decreases everywhere except in the West Midlands and South-East, which have ‘bucked the trend’ with more significant hikes in earnings. 

“In national terms, earnings are up by a slender £8 a week,” says Hudson Contract Managing Director Ian Anfield.  “June was the first month this year with neither a bank holiday nor poor weather to affect the output and it’s good to see last month’s earnings bounce-back of almost four per cent has been sustained.”

To view our interactive pay trends map click here

This month's winning trades

• Demolition & Wrecking: +5.17%
  Up for the second successive month
• Bricklaying: +3.77%
  Up overall, despite losses in the West Midlands and South West
• Electrical: +1.85%
  Surge seen in the North East

And the losers:

• Steel & Timber Frame Erection: -4.97%
  Last month's gains wiped out
• Equipment & Operator Hire: -1.52% 
  Down - but only by £13 per week
• Mechanical & Engineering: -1.24% 
  Weekly earnings still top £1,000

Also bouncing back this month from its winter slump is the latest nationwide IHS Markit/CIPS UK construction PMI survey.  Growth has soared to a seven month high, with June becoming the strongest month for construction this year.

New orders have risen at the fastest pace since May 2017, job creation has been the fastest in a year and June saw the largest upturn in buying construction materials for two-and-a-half years.

Ian Anfield adds:  “The data suggests much of the early-year weakness was caused by the ‘Beast from the East’ rather than anything more sinister.  Given the increase in temperatures this month, which has caused a few roads to melt, maybe some of Britain’s surfacing contractors will be doing particularly well!”

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 June 2018.