Cost guide
How much does industrial electrical cost?
£50 to £90 an hour in working hours and more for breakdown response out of them. Installation work is usually priced per project, and maintenance under an annual arrangement.
Typical prices
Ranges, not quotes. A quote depends on your home and the job.
| Work | Typical UK price |
|---|---|
| Hourly rate, working hours | £50 to £90 |
| Breakdown call out, out of hours | £120 to £250 first hour |
| Machine isolation and emergency stop installed | £400 to £1,200 |
| Motor starter or inverter drive fitted | £500 to £2,500 |
| Control panel built to a specification | £1,500 to £15,000 |
| Thermal imaging survey of distribution boards | £350 to £900 |
Buy the response time, not the hourly rate. On plant where an hour of downtime costs more than a day of labour, the difference between four hours and next week is the only number on the quote that matters.
What moves the price
- Whether the visit is planned or a breakdown, which is the largest single difference.
- Response time, where one is contracted.
- Containment and access. Working at height over machinery is slower than working along a wall.
- Whether drawings exist for what is being worked on.
- Three phase distribution, motor starters and drives, which carry their own parts cost.
- Shutdown windows, where the work can only happen while the plant is down.
Worth knowing
The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 put the duty on the employer to keep electrical systems safe, not on whoever last worked on them. Buying a test does not transfer that duty to the person who carried it out.
HSE guidance on the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989
Who quotes for it
1 of the 10,262 electricians listed on this site take on industrial electrical.
The towns with the most: Newport (1).
Questions about industrial electrical
Our panel has no drawings. Can you still work on it?
Yes, and the first hour goes on establishing what is in there. Ask for the drawings to be produced and handed over as part of the job, because it is the difference between this being slow once and slow every time.
Is three phase work different?
In the sense that the supply, the distribution and the protection are all different, and rotation matters for anything with a motor in it. It is normal industrial work and it is not domestic work with more wires.