Some 2026 trade-price guides show very wide ranges: plumbing can span roughly £25–£110 per hour, renovation can run from light refurbishment around £500–£800 per m² to bespoke high-end work around £4,000–£6,000 per m², and plastering can range from a £15–£30 skim coat to £60+ specialist finishes. It is tempting to treat the widest range as evidence that one trade is simply “more expensive” or “more variable” than another.
That conclusion would be too crude. The ranges are wide for different reasons. Geography drives some of the spread. Scope and specification drive another part. Emergency timing affects plumbing and electrical work. The pricing unit itself also changes: a per-hour range cannot be ranked directly against a per-day or per-square-metre range. The useful question is therefore not which headline number is biggest, but what causes the range inside each trade.
Five trades show five different kinds of price variation
| Trade | 2026 evidence range | Main reason the range widens |
|---|---|---|
| Plumbing | £25–£110/hr broad national spread; £45–£75/hr typical planned work | Location, job type, emergency/call-out conditions |
| Electrical | £35/hr lower-cost areas to £80+/hr central London; £45–£65/hr national average | Region, call-outs, out-of-hours work |
| Renovation | £500–£800/m² light to £4,000–£6,000/m² bespoke high-end | Specification and project scope, then geography |
| Gardening | £150–£300/day typical; £200–£400/day project work | Routine maintenance versus skilled/project landscaping and region |
| Plastering | £15–£30/m² skim; £25–£45 full re-plaster; £60+/m² specialist | Surface condition and finish specification |
This table shows why a simple ranking would mislead. Renovation appears to have the widest numerical spread, but the low and high ends describe fundamentally different project specifications. Plumbing’s £25–£110 spread uses the same hourly unit, but still mixes location and job type. Plastering’s range widens as the service changes from a skim to a full rebuild or specialist finish.
The correct reading is that each trade has a different source of variation. A homeowner should therefore identify the relevant sub-category before using the headline range.
Renovation has the broadest specification ladder, not one giant market rate
Renovation shows the most dramatic difference between entry-level and high-end numbers. Light refurbishment is around £500–£800 per m². Standard renovation is around £800–£1,500 per m². High-end work is around £1,500–£3,000+ per m², while bespoke high-end projects can reach £4,000–£6,000 per m².
Those figures should not be read as a single market where one contractor charges £500 and another charges £6,000 for the same job. They describe different scopes and specifications. A cosmetic refresh and a bespoke structural renovation are different products.
Geography then adds another layer. London mid-range work is around £1,200–£1,800 per m², with a wider London range of £1,400–£3,500. Named lower-cost regional cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield are around £800–£1,200 for the mid-range comparison. The range is therefore wide because specification and location both matter, not because renovation prices are inherently arbitrary.
Plumbing and electrical ranges widen when urgency and geography overlap
Plumbing has a broad national spread of roughly £25–£110 per hour, but ordinary planned work is more usefully described as around £45–£75 per hour. London sits at £60–£105, while major regional cities are around £40–£70. Emergency plumbing is about £80 per hour in the research, with call-outs commonly £40–£150 and some reaching £250.
Electrical work shows a similar structure. National standard work is around £45–£65 per hour, lower-cost areas can begin around £35, and central London can exceed £80. London’s main band is £65–£90, while Midlands and northern cities are £40–£60. Emergency or out-of-hours electrical work is £70–£120 per hour, with regional call-outs around £60–£120 and London around £90–£170.
These are not random spreads. The same trade becomes more expensive when the market location is more costly and when the customer needs immediate attendance. If the homeowner compares only planned weekday work within one region, the range becomes much narrower.
Gardening and plastering show how task type changes the relevant band
Gardening is commonly around £30–£50 per hour or £150–£300 per day. Self-employed landscapers doing project work are around £200–£400 per day. In Yorkshire and northern evidence, routine maintenance is £175–£300 per day, skilled hedge shaping or precision lawn care around £220–£280, and hard landscaping or specialist labour around £280–£350.
That means a £320 day rate may be high for basic maintenance but entirely plausible for specialist landscaping. The number cannot be interpreted until the work category is known.
Plastering follows the same logic in a per-square-metre format. A skim coat over a sound surface is £15–£30/m². Full re-plastering is £25–£45/m². Specialist finishes are £60+/m². London and the South East add a documented 20–30% premium. Again, a wider range reflects different services rather than inconsistent pricing for the same job.
How to tell whether a wide range is useful or misleading
A useful range should tell the reader what changes between the low and high ends. In the research packets used here, the strongest ranges do exactly that. Renovation distinguishes light, standard, high-end and bespoke work. Plastering distinguishes skim, full re-plaster and specialist finish. Electrical work separates standard labour, London premiums, call-outs and emergency work.
A misleading range would place all of those numbers beside one another without explaining why they differ. That is especially risky when online cost guides use a dramatic minimum and maximum as a headline. The user sees the width of the range but not the categories inside it.
City evidence also needs labels. Glasgow has a city-specific electrical figure of £42–£58, while Edinburgh uses the broader Scotland band of £45–£65. Bristol is represented by nearest documented regional bands in several packets and is explicitly flagged as an approximation. Renovation evidence is stronger for Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield than for some of the other cities. These differences in evidence quality should remain visible.
The supporting data comes from sourced 2026 pricing packets covering plumbing, electrical work, renovation, gardening and plastering. Those packets record both the figures and their provenance, including failed or partial webpage fetches where the underlying number came from a cited search summary rather than a successful full-page extraction.
The practical lesson is that the widest-looking range is rarely the most useful number. Homeowners should narrow the range by answering four questions first: what exact service is being bought, what pricing unit applies, where is the property, and is the job planned or urgent? Once those are fixed, the relevant band usually becomes much more informative.