Hi,
It depends upon your level of skill:
To mow the lawn weed out borders, etc. basically unskilled work €20-25 per hr.
More advanced, like planning and executing a garden, €100 per hr.
Good point headfullofbees.
Above shows our minimum wage in the UK. For general gardening duties then £15 per hour seems reasonable but with quite a few factors to take into account. Gardening generally means moving around from garden to garden and how often will a full 8 hour day be spent in one garden; locally gardeners are employed for two hours perhaps every two weeks so taking travelling time it's unlikely a full 8 hour day will be achieved unless running into overtime.
Our UK climate is often dire; it certainly is here in West Yorkshire where it can rain for months on end; our winters drag on for many months too making any work outside a gamble even in mid summer.
Gardeners are usually gardeners and don't understand how their gardening machines work such as petrol lawn mowers or hedge trimmers so they have these serviced by a third part at high cost; our neighbours gardener had his petrol mower serviced the mower then out of his hands for three weeks and it cost him £145; it's just a standard mower not the ride on type. Of course those doing the servicing need to be paid but as I explained to the gardener servicing isn't highly skilled once the basics are grasped so save a lot of money and learn how to do your own servicing; there are now many YouTube videos showing how to do servicing. I like tinkering around and I like this neighbours gardener who is a hard worker so in future I'll take on his servicing only charging for parts and consumables; he'll be given original parts back and will receive any invoices stating any expenditure on my part. This gardener is called Paul and I was having a quick natter with Paul yesterday over the garden fence; Paul has a mower problem where a third party installed an incorrect control cable the cable now having a number of cable ties attached to it and it doesn't work correctly; Paul doesn't understand the function of the cable and he isn't in any way clued up regarding mechanics but he's going to learn pretty soon because I'm going to look after his gardening kit and have a go at teaching him the basics treating it as an hobby; I'll enjoy tinkering around costing me nothing other than my time and Paul hopefully will save quite a bit of money and learn new skills so a win win situation.
National insurance and income tax has to be paid; those on low income won't have a lot of tax to pay but gardening equipment costs money to buy and maintain also fuel both for transport and powering equipment soon adds up. Gardeners need to have a compact area to work in otherwise transport; time and running costs quickly mount up; it's OK travelling a good distance for say a full days work but not for just a couple of hours. If self employed then there are tax returns and insurance which has already been mentioned; vehicle insurance will cost more if running a business.
Our postman has his full time post delivery job but in the evenings and weekends he and his wife are out doing gardening work; this I think is a good balance; the backup of full time guaranteed work with a guaranteed income with gardening income as a bonus but care is needed because earnings have to be declared for tax purposes.
It's not a bed of roses being self employed; I found it highly stressful when I had my own garage business many years ago; I lived at work with customers wanting their cars repairing yesterday and seldom being happy to pay for repairs. When I retired in 2000 I intended to start up my own furniture business concentrating on solid oak Welsh dressers with a brilliant name of Colwyn Dressers ( Colin & Bronwyn). We had £30,000 start up fund in cash we could afford to lose if things went wrong without impacting on our lives; however the more we looked into starting a business from scratch here in the UK with all the rules and regulations involved Bron asked me if I really wanted to carry on working because she could manage on my works pension so in 2000 I fully retired and have never regretted it.
How many self employed actually pay into a private pension fund; when they do finally retire they will be living in poverty and things are getting worse not better; the private pension rules have changed here and how many are taking advantage by spending their pension on cars; caravans; house extensions and holidays ignoring the fact what the pension fund was meant to be for. We planned our retirement from first marrying 43 years ago paying into my final salary pension doing without luxuries whilst everyone around us was spending every penny they could borrow; I'm now 19 years into retirement and we're better off now than when we were both working.
Self employment is a minefield with everyone's hand in your pocket; who really wants to be in a garden when the puddles are frozen with thick ice and the ground is rock hard.
One important question; is it worth killing yourself to work like a demon being constantly stressed out to earn lots of money then spend the money on things like holidays or cars; Bron and I haven't had an holiday away from home for the last 42 years and when we tell people they are usually aghast; what they don't realize whilst they are still out working full time is that Bron and I are on holiday full time the year round; obviously everyone is different but we've done our grafting and now we can enjoy our own quiet life whilst the world goes mad around us.
A full time job with guaranteed income and gardening in spare time weather permitting seems a good compromise to me; interesting thread though and I wish anyone going into gardening full time the very best of luck.
Kind regards, Colin.
