Auckland · 13 building trades
What the trades are paid, and why that is not what you are charged.
Thirteen building trades, each with a published hourly pay band, a median, a live count of Auckland job advertisements and a training duration. This is the real, sourced foundation under every cost model on this site — and the single most misused dataset in trade pricing, because a wage is not a price.
$41.41
Construction ordinary-time hourly earnings across the construction industry, Mar 2026 quarter. Up +50.0% in ten years, or +9.6% after consumer inflation. This is an average of what employees earn, before tax. It is not a charge-out rate.
Stats NZ — Labour market statistics, Quarterly Employment Survey — March 2026 quarter · March 2026 quarter
Photography commissioned — plate reserved · July 2026
The distinction
A wage, a charge-out rate and a price are three different numbers.
Every figure on this page is a wage — what the person doing the work receives, before tax. Getting from there to what appears on your invoice takes two more steps, and both are stated openly here rather than assumed.
- The wage. Published, sourced, current. What the tradesperson is paid per hour.
- The charge-out rate. The wage plus ACC, leave, vehicles, tools, insurance, supervision, unpaid quoting time, overhead and margin. Ordinarily 1.8× to 2.6× the wage. That range is judgement — no official New Zealand source publishes it.
- The price. Charge-out rate multiplied by hours, plus materials, fittings, consent fees, scaffolding, disposal and everything else. Only the builder who has seen the house can produce this one.
Any site that shows you trade wages and calls them rates has skipped step two. Any site that shows you a price per square metre has skipped all three. The build-up, with the hours printed, is here.
The data
Thirteen trades, three counts, one attribution.
Ordered by how central the trade is to renovation work rather than by pay. Every trade name links to its source record. Note the three separate listing columns and the note beneath the table explaining why they do not agree.
| Trade | Hourly band | Median | Auckland listings | National total (regional series) | Listings on the occupation record | Training |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carpenter | $24.04–$49.52 | $31.25 | 396 | 2694 | 1376 | 3-4 years |
| Electrician | $24.04–$63.94 | $41.35 | 540 | 2309 | 1656 | 3-4 years |
| Plumber | $24.04–$51.92 | $35.10 | 53 | 220 | 216 | 3-4 years |
| Drainlayer | $24.04–$57.69 | $37.98 | 150 | 1688 | 358 | 3-4 years |
| Wall and floor tiler | $24.04–$50.00 | $32.21 | 118 | 755 | 136 | 0-3 years |
| Cabinet maker | $24.04–$49.04 | $33.65 | 154 | 1189 | 226 | 0-3 years |
| Plasterer | $24.04–$48.56 | $30.77 | 135 | 1532 | 215 | 0-3 years |
| Roofer | $24.04–$51.92 | $31.73 | 153 | 1375 | 317 | 0-3 years |
| Glazier | $24.04–$47.12 | $32.21 | 141 | 928 | 220 | 0-3 years |
| Painter and decorator | $24.04–$45.19 | $29.81 | 122 | 1386 | 164 | 0-3 years |
| Architectural technician | $25.00–$62.98 | $39.90 | 26 | 56 | 53 | 2-3 years |
| Quantity surveyor | $27.40–$87.50 | $50.48 | 37 | 112 | 112 | 1-2 years |
| Construction manager | $34.62–$93.27 | $59.13 | 310 | 1153 | 889 | 0-2 years |
The last two columns are different figures and are not interchangeable. "Auckland listings" and "national total" come from the source’s regional breakdown; "listings on the occupation record" is a separately computed live count published on the occupation itself. They are counted at slightly different moments and by slightly different queries, so they differ — and presenting either as the other would be wrong. Both are live counts of advertised vacancies, not a measure of the size of the trade. The pay you see here is your pay before tax. When an employer pays you, Inland Revenue (IR) collects a percentage of that income. Learn more about income tax on the IR website
Tertiary Education Commission — Tahatū Career Navigator · retrieved 2026-07-30
Reading it
What the listing counts do and do not mean.
Live job advertisements are a demand signal. They are not the size of a trade, they are not a shortage measure, and they are counted at a moment in time — which is why the source’s own two counts differ.
The most useful reading is relative. Electrician shows 540 live Auckland listings and architectural technician shows 26. That ordering tells you which trades are being competed for, and therefore which ones you should book earliest and expect least flexibility from.
It does not tell you that one trade is scarce and another is not. A trade with few employers and mostly self-employed practitioners can be extremely hard to book while advertising almost nothing, and this dataset cannot see that. So the counts belong in a planning conversation about lead times, not in an argument about rates.
The bottom of nearly every band is $24.04, which is the minimum wage floor showing through rather than a market rate for qualified work. Use the median.
Tertiary Education Commission — Tahatū Career Navigator · retrieved 2026-07-30
Tertiary Education Commission — Tahatū Career Navigator · retrieved 2026-07-30
Photography commissioned — plate reserved · July 2026
Questions people actually ask
Is a wage the same as a charge-out rate?
No, and confusing the two is the most common mistake made with this data. The pay you see here is your pay before tax. When an employer pays you, Inland Revenue (IR) collects a percentage of that income. Learn more about income tax on the IR website A charge-out rate has to cover that wage plus ACC levies, annual and sick leave, public holidays, vehicles, tools, insurance, supervision, unpaid quoting time, office overhead and margin. Across New Zealand trades a multiplier of 1.8× to 2.6× the wage is the ordinary range — that multiplier is judgement, not published data, and it is stated so you can substitute your own.
Why are there two different job-listing numbers?
Because the source publishes two. Each occupation record carries its own live count of available job listings, and the regional breakdown carries a national total and a per-region figure computed separately. They are queried at slightly different moments and do not agree exactly. This page prints all three columns rather than picking the flattering one, because a data page that quietly reconciles two live counts into one number is hiding something.
Which trades are hardest to get in Auckland right now?
On live Auckland listings, the top three in this dataset are electrician (540), carpenter (396) and construction manager (310). Advertised vacancies are a demand signal, not a supply measure: a high count means employers are hiring, which usually also means those trades are booked and their rates have support. It is a reason to give a builder more notice, not a reason to accept any price.
Why is the bottom of almost every band the same number?
Because $24.04 is the adult minimum wage floor showing through the data. Ten of the thirteen trades here start their published band at exactly that figure, which reflects apprentices and trainees inside the occupation rather than the rate a qualified tradesperson works for. Read the median, not the bottom of the band, when you are thinking about qualified labour.
Do these rates tell me what my renovation will cost?
Only the labour part of it, and only once you have decided how many hours of each trade the job needs. That is exactly what the models on this site do: real pay rates, printed assumed hours, and a stated multiplier. The build-up is on the costs hub, with per-job versions for kitchens, bathrooms and extensions.
Where does this data come from and can I reuse it?
Tertiary Education Commission — Tahatū Career Navigator, retrieved 2026-07-30, licensed CC BY 4.0. Photos and videos on Tahatū are not licensed for reuse. This dataset carries text, pay bands and counts only — no image or video URLs. For reference, the source also states: "The average pay in Aotearoa New Zealand is $34 an hour or $70,000 a year."
Consent and zoning information on this page describes the published rules and the Auckland Unitary Plan zoning map. It is not a determination about your property, and only Auckland Council can confirm what applies to your address. Much of the work described here is restricted building work under the Building Act 2004, which must be carried out or supervised by a Licensed Building Practitioner. This site does not yet name the trade partner who would do the work, and until it does it claims no licence, guarantee or membership.
One route from here
From rates to a number for your job.
Send the scope and you will get the hours reasoning applied to your house, with the assumptions written down. Ranges, sources and the parts that cannot be known yet — in writing.