Every October I calculate what my new rate of pay will be in the new year (from 1st January onwards). The new ‘London Living Wage’ has been announced today on 22nd October 2025 and the following price change reflects this.

From 1st January 2026, my rate for gardening will be:

£35 per hour.

I have been developing my approach to this over the past 3 or so years now, testing things out, seeing what works for me and my clients in terms of pricing, structure, etc. Each year I have tweaked the calculations a bit to better reflect the work that I put in outside of peoples gardens such as communications, invoicing, researching, caring for tools, my bike, my trailer. There is also the cost of insurance, my website, any other communications materials or time spent curating these. This has been a slow process of learning and realising the nature of the work, how long it takes to do and learning to place proper value on it.

This year I am going back to a standard, single hourly rate. This comes after testing a slightly higher rate for the first two hours which ultimately became confusing and still didn’t reflect additional costs such as time spent communicating or the replacement/purchase of new tools. There will still be a minimum booking of 2 hours.

I have found it difficult at times to get my head around charging prices that I myself don’t feel like I could afford. Partly this is the mixed nature of my work - working in the voluntary sector does not pay well and this work most definitely subsidises that. With that in mind, I am grateful to everyone who has hired me to work in their gardens over the past years. You have enabled me to do the work that I feel most passionately about, which is actively working in and sharing a passion for growing, wildlife and existing more harmoniously with people. Thank you for that.