PAT Testing Prices Guide

This document is intended to be a guide – it’s not exact in all places. If you contact us we will give you a personal price based on the job you need doing, which may be more or less than what is quoted here.

Why do we charge what we do? Like any business we have our own prices, and we feel they offer excellent value for money. We have over 1500 active returning clients so our pricing must be spot on for the service we provide them. We are not the cheapest, but we’re not the most expensive either – we sit somewhere in the top half. We know our prices are fair and competitive, because we are in demand, but that’s also because our service is known for its high standards and sensible working practices.

If you have experience of PAT testers – we’re not going to come in and rush about your office, we do a thorough job, but we’re not slow either. We’re efficient and do a good job, we’re experts in what we do. We inspect and test equipment correctly.

There’s companies offering PAT that don’t value it, and use it to get a foot in the door for other services, or use it as a cash cow – the more items they can ‘test’ in the time the more money they make. You don’t want to work with these suppliers, they do not have your best interests at heart. How do you spot them? They’re offering their service for silly money, usually less than £1 per item.

A good PAT tester, doing a thorough job with good inspections, repairs, fault finding and providing guidance on maintaining safety standards will complete 100-200 items per day depending on the environment and how many jobs he’s doing. If we’re doing 2 or 3 jobs in the day we may do 100-150 items; if we’re in a factory testing tools, or on a building site it could be less than 100, if we’re in an office or school we may get more than 200 done. If an office at a weekend, or the school in the holidays we could be doing 300 or more… what we’re saying is we can’t put a number on what we will do all the time, so there is no set price. None of that really matters to you – all you need to know is, we will give you peace of mind that your electrical equipment is safe.

Our office is in North Shields – if you just have a few items, you could bring them to us, don’t just turn up though, please make an appointment.

Our engineers are home based and so we charge an initial fee based on them travelling from their location. The shorter the distance the cheaper the price. Once on the job, we charge a per item rate and that is dependent on the type of appliance, number of items and working environment.

Our PAT Testing price structure is simple:

✔ There is an initial fee that covers the first 20 items to test; we then charge for every item we test thereafter

✔ The more items you have the more the price is discounted – we don’t go crazy on this though as it still takes the same amount of time to do the job.

✔ We would prefer to give you a fixed price for the job or per hour rate

✔ We don’t charge for minor repairs – so if you need a plug repairing or fuse replacing – we’ll do it for free.

✔ The price you agree now, will guarantee not to rise for the next 3 years.

These prices assume you are based in the shaded areas of the map; these areas represent a 30 minute travel time for our engineers from main locations of our office in North Shields and our furthest south engineer in Seaham (also where our business was born).

If you want our service and are based elsewhere please contact us for a price.

• Minor repairs will be completed free of charge including repairing the existing plug with new parts, replacing fuses and rewires. Other repairs incur charges – see repair costs.
• Microwave ovens will be tested for emissions leakage at an extra £5.00 per oven.
• Any 110v and 230v commando plugs will be charged for at £1.80 per item, 400v plugs at £2.80 per item.
• Building sites: £150.00 min charge including first 50 items, then £1.50 per item for standard appliances, and £2.50 per item for 110v equipment.
• Factories, environments with power tools and or PPE, and care homes min rate is £1.25 per item or £45 per hour.
• Discounts available for Landlords with multiple properties block bookings, schools in holidays and empty offices.
• VAT will be added to the price.

Whilst we do our best to do repairs included in the estimated price we can’t do them all for free; minor repairs such as tightening plug screws, replacing fuse holders and cable grips, even fuses, are very low value and take seconds to do, so we do these for free.

However some repairs take time, and parts like plugs* are expensive, so we charge for these. *If you have just one plug that needs replacing we’ll do this for free, but if there’s more, which is unusual then we do charge.

Likewise if we have to repair the cable, by removing the plug, taking the cable back to a safe location and rewiring the plug back on, this takes time so we charge a small fee.

Industrial and Commando Plugs – If you have these you will know; they’re generally yellow for 110v, blue for 230v and red for 415v. Inspecting these takes a lot longer than a normal plug, generally they’ll be dirty, or in dirty environments and usually require repairs or other maintenance. We charge extra for these items.

In reference to 415v items, operating on 3-phase power – wiring these is a skilled specialism, which we do not need to possess; so we do our inspection and basic tests but we cannot do repairs, and so recommend you use a specialist contractor for these items.

Industry standard is per item but we feel this is not good value for money for you, so our alternative pricing is this:

• Price per hour – £25.00 initial fee then the per hour rate of £40.00 per hour
• Day rate – £275.00 – based on up to 6.5 hours testing plus breaks and admin

Fixed appliances – these are appliances where the plug has been replaced by ‘hard wiring’ the flex into the mains; as standard we will test for earth continuity, which we do at the same time as the other appliances.

A full test should be carried out every 5 years from install or inline with your EICR – this involves isolating the power (turning it off) unwiring the item and running a full test on it. This is time consuming, and requires specialist electrical knowledge, that only a small number of PAT testers have. We can do this; chargeable at our hourly rate.

Server Systems – most clients do not want these turning off; whilst you should arrange a shutdown for full test at least every 5 years from install, you may prefer to put this responsibility in the hands of your IT department. We never unplug server systems. As standard we will do a basic visual inspection on all items that make up the system. But if you want a further assessment we can conduct a thermal image server using a specialist camera. This again can only be done by certain members of the team and we don’t carry the cameras ordinarily, so arrangements will need to be made.

Fixed Wiring Inspections –  We also offer EICRs – fixed wiring inspections – by working with us you get a discount on this, from an NICEIC registered electrical engineer we use. He can also test your emergency lighting and fire alarms.

VAT: All prices quoted are PLUS VAT. This means VAT will be added to the price.

We do offer a discount scheme – if you pay upfront we’ll give you a 5% discount off the price.

DRA PAT Testing – There’s no shocks with us! 

You can save 5% off your PAT testing price by paying up front. We agree a rate for the job and you pay for it before to reserve the appointment; when the job is done there is nothing to pay – unless we do more items than you were quoted for, in which case we’ll charge for the extras.

The price we quote for appliance testing varies depending on the job – we have to take various factors into consideration.

• We have to travel to the job before we get paid, so we have to take that time into account. Our cheapest travel rates are for up to 30 minutes, and we charge a bit extra from then on, because the more time we spend travelling the less time we spend getting paid for testing.
• If you are based closer to us, we may offer a discount.
• For example if we do 2 jobs in a day that’s twice as much paperwork to do, so we have to cover the admin time for that too.
• If we can put two or more engineers on the same job, travelling together the travel costs are reduced so we pass this saving on to you.
• If we’re on a job all week at the same place, there is a lot less admin to do as it’s just one report, so you get the saving there too.
• A job in an industrial unit is likely to mean a lot more repairs than say in an office, so we have to take that into account.
• A job in a big empty office on a Saturday makes our work so much easier, so we’re more inclined to give a discount. And so on.

Speak to us about a personal price by getting your own PAT Testing quotation.

PAT testing is carried out in workplaces such as offices, salons, restaurants and so on to make sure electrical equipment is as safe now as when it was purchased; to make sure no issues have been allowed to develop, to make sure the appliance is still safe to use. Regular PAT Tests help business owners to meet the requirements of the Electricity at Work Regulations.

Everybody seems to want the cheapest PAT testing price – that’s the wrong way to look at it. What happens if you pay peanuts? Well that definitely applies in this industry. We have same some awful work by cheap companies.

If you organise someone to check your electrical equipment is safe, you want the peace of mind of knowing that it really is.

You have passed on this work to someone because you are not competent to do it yourself, but are you? Could you do your PAT testing yourself? If you’re considering paying less than about 75p to £1.00 per item, yes, you could do it yourself. For 75p we’re talking big numbers in low risk environments by the way.

If your chosen PAT company is charging you less than 75p per item you want to have a think about what you’re getting. From our experience, and we have witnessed their work, we know that you are not getting much.

The companies that charge you that amount, pay their ‘engineers’ peanuts. If they’re lucky they’ll get 25p per item. If that’s all they’re getting they need to test 44 items per hour to make minimum wage. Whereas a company charging you £1.00 per item can be paying their engineer £15.00 per hour or higher. The engineer on an hourly rate isn’t in a rush to do his job, so he does it right – he checks every plug, every lead, every appliance. He opens every plug, he checks the fuses and the terminals, he makes sure the appliance functions, that switches work, that microwave seals are in place, and so on. He has the time. He does repairs as needed, he’ll replace plugs. When you work with us this is what you get, and we don’t charge extras for the repairs.

The cheap company’s engineer doesn’t have time to do all that, as he has to label and record 44 items to make minimum wage, so he’ll label as many items as he can, ideally more than 44. He’s actually targeted about 500 items each day, which is more like 66 items an hour. He’ll like make up the test results, and he’ll not bother unplugging items and doesn’t have time for visual inspections. He could be missing some very dangerous appliances, but he doesn’t care.

We care about you, and your business, which is why we do our job right. We charge proper prices, that are sensible, cost effective and guarantee you a competent engineer who will do a good job and give you peace of mind that your appliances are safe.

Industrial appliances – if your plugs are ‘commando’ type like the one pictured then we charge a bit more.

Whether it’s 110v, 230v or 400v the process of the inspection takes a lot longer than a normal plug. It’s a lot harder to open the plug and usually there will be more repairs to do. Basic repairs such as tightening screws or rewiring are done automatically included in the price, but if we have to supply replacement plugs or repair the cable and do a full rewire we will have to charge for parts.

We can test:

• 110v appliances
• 230v appliances
• 400v appliances

For repairs there is more work to do – a repair takes longer, and the parts are more expensive so it’s not included in the price.

• For flexible cable repairs: When the cable is damaged we’ll remove the plug, cut it back to a safe location and re-attach the plug – this costs £5.00*
• To replace the full plug: There is a charge of £10.00 to supply and fit the plug, either ‘male’ or ‘female’.*

Please note: We only replace 16a and 32a plugs; we don’t replace full cables. Wee don’t do full rewires or replacements for 400v as these are specialist and you need a qualified industrial electrician to do this.

*We do not do cost able repairs automatically – we will collect up all items that need this repair, put them in one place and leave until end of the job. We’ll quote you for the work, then it’s up to you if the repairs are done. 

Microwave Ovens will be checked:

• internally for rust,
• the door locking system will be checked and
• a test will be carried out using a radiation checker to make sure no excessive emissions are leaking from the unit.

This process takes a few minutes to complete and comes with a standard charge of £5.00 per oven. This is done automatically; although the first is included in the initial fee.

See here for more information on the microwave emissions leakage test.

Not all portable appliances have plugs – some have had the plug removed and have been ‘hard wired’. For example integrated kitchen appliances, hand driers in toilets, hair driers in hotels, electric heaters on your office wall. These also need checking.

When we do your PAT test we will visually inspect these, and if they have ‘earth’ we’ll do a continuity test between the appliance and ‘spur’. This costs the same as the normal PAT test.

However, they also need a formal ‘fixed appliance test‘ carried out every 5 years from installation. To do this we need to turn off the power, open the spur and check the internal wiring. This takes longer to do and due to the constraints this is an added service which commands additional costs. We charge £45.00 per hour + vat to carry this out. This is not part of the PAT test.

Not everybody wants a per item rate; in fact for almost every job we would recommend an hourly or day rate – it would work out much cheaper on many occasions, but for reasons unknown clients want a per item rate.

If however, you want to pay by the hour or the day, or to potentially save money we recommend choosing this option.

All costs are included – it’s a fixed price, whether we do 10 items an hour or 50 items, it doesn’t matter. You get our first class service, all repairs etc included in the price.

I just want to make sure you are aware of what you may not get from a ‘50p per item supplier’.

As director for a national association trying to raise awareness of the ethics of these companies, I want to make sure you’re aware of the risks.

This is based on a real live example – we have worked with this client a few years now, a school in Newcastle upon Tyne. They’d had a bad experience with their previous supplier and so we got the job.

The previous supplier’s engineer managed to test over 600 items in less than a day on site; he missed loads of appliances that were damaged – found throughout the following term by teachers and children at school.

That scares me, that someone cares so little about children in school he’d knowingly cut corners putting them at risk.

These companies charging 50p or about that, to PAT test, are cowboys, and the people that work for them are cowboys too. They could get a much better job working for an ethical company. They get paid about 20p per item, so do the maths – they have to test 500 items a day to make £100.00. Then quite often they don’t get paid travel time or fuel either so that comes off what they earn. I have heard of guys ‘testing’ 1000 items in a day!

What do they actually do – the slap their stickers on and do little else. Quite often they write down the appliance in a book and later on make up the test results whilst watching the TV sat on their sofa at home.

When we did the inspection last year at this school, we had 3 of our best guys on the job all day.

I have seen too many issues arise from companies that cut corners and it scares me the most when it’s children that could suffer.

If the PAT tester misses dangerous things that puts school children (or other users in other workplaces) at risk of electric shock, or the appliance at risk of overheating and catching fire, risking other items, the building, the business, etc.

They also have high charges for repairs, when they do them – quite often the engineer will skip them completely, simply fail the item and move on or pretend he didn’t see it, because he doesn’t get paid for a fail or to repair. But when they do charge, they’ll charge astronomical rates like £10 to change a plug. They also do ‘socket tests’ for an added fee – you don’t need to get sockets tested, they’re done by the electrician as part of your EICR.

We don’t pay our engineers per item rates like most, we pay proper wages and encourage them to take time to ensure every appliance is carefully checked and any repairs needed are done.

We pay them travel time and fuel allowance and don’t have targets, except to do a great job and to be sure they have left every workplace safer than how they found it.

We provide you with certificates that itemise every item tested, and their electrical readings – if something happens that requires you to give evidence in court you’ll need that information as evidence you have taken all possible action to ensure you have maintained safe equipment. 50p companies don’t tend to provide this information – I’ve seen paperwork so bad it was in illegible handwriting, I’ve seen other reports where the data provided differed from page to page, others where just a tick confirms something had been checked.

I have watched PAT testers wave their phone at an appliance to claim it was tested, and not get a tester or screwdriver out of their tool bag, ever.

Check out this video from the PAT Testing Network that shows you What is Not PAT Testing.

If you have more than 100 items the price drops, and if you’re local we often don’t charge the initial £55.00 fee. Quite often we’ll charge around £125 for 100 items then £1.00 per item after that – it all depends on the job really.

If we’re going to be at the same place a day, or longer we offer further discounts, as travel is less, we can put more people on the job and there is less admin as we’re only doing one site.

There are so many possibilities to consider we always recommend you contact us for your own PAT testing price.

PAT testing companies are like high street shops where prices are concerned; there’s the big national chains offering rock bottom prices for a quick fix – the quality isn’t great but you know you get something “that’ll do” until it goes wrong. There’s the middle ground company charging an average rate, who is safe, and going to do a good job and then there is the premium priced stores who must people just won’t shop in.

PAT testing prices are like this – you can pay..

Rock bottom prices – 50 to 70p per item (or less) and you get a range of the service, from nothing more than a few stickers slapped on your appliances to a quick job done to minimum standard.. The latter end of this price range ticks the boxes and is going to be acceptable to minimal scrutiny and you may get a report saying “pass”, whilst if you go for the cheapest price you’ll likely get an engineer who has to sprint everywhere to make a basic salary, who won’t have time to open your plugs or do repairs.

Middle of the road – 75p (for the high numbers) through £1 to around £1.20 per item for most jobs. For this price you can expect to receive a good service in the most part, there are some who still cut corners, but if you do your homework and choose a supplier with plenty of good reviews and credentials to back up their work, you shouldn’t go too wrong in your choice. You can expect to get peace of mind that your equipment is safe, repairs should be carried out though expect a charge, and you’ll get a comprehensive report which should include electrical readings.

High end Prices – If you go for the high end prices, the electrician rates at £5.00 an item or £60 an hour you expect to get the best product AND service. This is what you should get here, but what you actually get is a mix of the other 2, usually carried out by people with less experience and less PAT knowledge than the the other two.

When you use us – we offer middle of the road prices – for most jobs everything is a pound; sometimes we may discount that if we can put a team on the job thus reducing our travel costs and admin time. Sometimes, such as when we’re testing lots of tools or in industrial areas we may charge more. In fact we recommend you pay us an hourly rate, as that is always better for you. For your money you get peace of mind; our engineers are paid by the hour, so they’re not in a rush, they’re encouraged to remove old labels, find faults and take the time to do good repairs – most of the time the repair costs are NOT passed on to the customer, as by charging a little bit more, they’re covered in the initial fee.

Our staff are also encouraged to build rapport with their customer, to get to know your business so we can offer the best possible service. We also talk to you about retest periods so you’re not spending money when it’s not necessary, and set up a reminder service for you so you’re always compliant. We provide itemised reports that include electrical readings, which have stood up to the test of court-room scrutiny, and meet HSE PAT testing, CQC, Ofsted and CHAS etc scrutiny.

We ask all our clients to review our service on Google, so other prospective clients can see first hand what our customers think of our work, giving us complete transparency.

You can contact us for a personal PAT testing price, or you can just book an appointment at our standard rates, it’s up to you whichever you prefer. Once we have done the job we’ll likely offer you a better price to retain your work long term anyway.

On average we expect to test 25 to 30 items per hour; when conditions are good we may do more. In an average day at one location we’d expect to test 200 to 250 items.

If you choose a day rate, if conditions are good (like you’re office based), we may be able to test 250 items in the day – if you’re paying per item you’d pay more than you would paying day rate.