Official figures, with their sources
Two official sources publish pay for tilers. Here's what each one measures, its range and what it leaves out. None of it is a promise of any wage.
Each comes from a public source we name, with the year it describes and the date we read it. They measure different things, so they do not agree exactly.
A guide range for tilers in England, from starting out to experienced.
The profile does not say which year the range describes or how it was worked out, so treat it as a rough guide.
Source: National Careers Service, Tiler: job profile. No reference year given; range as shown on the profile in October 2026. Read on 31 October 2026.
Gross annual pay before tax, for full-time employee jobs in the ONS group “Floorers and wall tilers”.
The group counts floor layers as well as wall and floor tilers, so it is wider than tiling alone. It is a small group, so its estimates are less precise than for bigger trades. Figures are rounded to the nearest hundred pounds. ONS rates all three estimates as acceptable.
ONS does not publish a figure for the best-paid quarter of these jobs, because its sample is too small to be reliable. So the top figure here is the one ONS does publish: the point three in ten jobs paid more than. We do not estimate the rest.
Provisional figures: ONS revises them when it publishes next year’s.
Source: Office for National Statistics, Earnings and hours worked, occupation by four-digit SOC: ASHE Table 14, Table 14.7a, full-time employees, SOC 2020 code 5322. Tax year ending 5 April 2026 (ASHE 2026, provisional). Released 22 October 2026. Read on 31 October 2026.
An industry agreement, an employee salary and a customer invoice measure different things.
| Measure | What to compare |
|---|---|
| Employee salary | Gross pay, contracted hours, overtime, paid holiday, pension and travel terms. |
| Industry agreement | Whether the contract follows it, the correct grade, its effective date and applicable allowances. |
| Self-employed invoice | Revenue before materials, business costs, unpaid time and tax; it is not take-home pay. |
Some building employers set pay under the Construction Industry Joint Council's Working Rule Agreement, which covers grades, rates and allowances for building workers. Not every tiling employer follows it or any agreement, and it says nothing about self-employed rates. Ask the employer which agreement, if any, its contract follows, and check the current rate in that agreement.
Offer-comparison guidance updated . Figure reference periods and access dates remain beside each figure table.
Read the ranges with these limits in mind.
The ONS survey counts employees only, so it says nothing about people who work for themselves. The National Careers Service range does not say it covers them either.
Neither source gives a day rate, and we know of no official public source that does, so we give none. Rates on job boards and forums are not official statistics.
The ONS figures are for full-time employees on adult rates who had been in the same job for more than a year.
The ONS figures are for the whole UK; this table does not split them by nation or region. The National Careers Service range is for England only.
Apprentice pay is set differently. The legal minimum is below.
A range describes what jobs paid in the past. It does not tell you what any employer will pay you.
Two people in the same trade can be paid very differently. These are the usual reasons; none of them comes with an official figure.
Where you work. Pay differs across the UK. Compare adverts and ask employers in the area you will actually work in, not national figures.
Overtime and call-outs. Some jobs add paid overtime, call-outs or shift work to basic pay, and some do not. Ask how often it happens and how it is paid.
Employed or self-employed. Working for yourself means setting your own prices, but also paying for your own van, tools, insurance, holidays and quiet weeks. Employee figures cannot tell you what would be left.
Where you take the work. The National Careers Service says that with experience and extra training you could move into site management, estimating, contract management or heritage work, train apprentices in further education, or set up your own business. We have no official figure for what each of those pays.
An apprentice is an employee, paid at least the National Minimum Wage. These are the legal minimums for the whole UK: a floor, not a typical wage.
We do not know of an official figure for what apprentice tilers are typically paid, so we do not give one. Your contract should state your rate; ask each employer what it pays and how pay rises as you progress.
Source: GOV.UK (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade), National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates. Rates from 1 April 2026. Read on 25 October 2026.
No. A customer invoice has to cover business costs and time that cannot be billed as well as the person's earnings. Employee gross pay is a different measure. Compare net business income only after realistic costs, unpaid time and tax have been considered.
Compare contracted hours and basic pay first, then the written overtime, travel, call-out, holiday and pension terms. Treat optional overtime separately from contracted income. Ask which industry agreement and grade apply rather than assuming a national pay range describes the offer.
In the latest ONS figures, which are provisional, half of full-time employee jobs for floorers and wall tilers paid less than £35,900 a year before tax. A quarter paid less than £28,400, and three in ten paid more than £39,700. The National Careers Service gives £21,000 for a starter to £38,000 when experienced, for England. Neither is a promise of any wage.
We know of no official public source that publishes one, so we do not give one. The ONS survey covers employees only, and many tilers are self-employed, so it says nothing about their rates.
At least the legal minimum. On GOV.UK's current rates, the apprentice rate is £8 an hour. GOV.UK sets out who it applies to, by age and by year of the apprenticeship; after that, the minimum is the rate for your age. Many employers pay more, so ask each one.
We re-read each figure when its source publishes a new edition. If a source disagrees with this page, the source is right.
A pay range only matters if there is a way into the work. These are the next steps.
Our wall and floor tiling path is in public beta: some lessons are still being checked. Our tiling path teaches the knowledge side of the trade. TradeTraining prepares people for training and work. We do not award qualifications, certify competence, register anyone or place anyone in a job, and our lessons do not replace supervised workplace training or formal assessment.