When a trade business owner says “we can’t afford admin help”, they’re usually doing one of two pieces of maths — and both are wrong.
Wrong maths #1 — the hourly rate
“A bookkeeper is £12–15 an hour, so a few hours a week is nothing.”
The Office for National Statistics puts the median part-time bookkeeper at £15,070 a year (ASHE 2025, SOC 4122) — roughly £1,256 a month gross.
Add employer National Insurance and pension contributions and the realistic loaded figure lands around £1,450–£1,550 a month. That’s before recruitment, training, sick cover, and the laptop.
Wrong maths #2 — the “free” comparison
“My partner does it for free, so the comparison is £0.” It isn’t.
The comparison is evenings, weekends, and a single point of failure for the entire business. When the unpaid person is ill, away, or simply done, the “free” arrangement reveals its actual price.
What the numbers actually look like
| Option | Monthly cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Part-time bookkeeper (ONS median, loaded) | ~£1,450–£1,550 | ~2 days/week, one person, no cover when off |
| Employed office admin (part-time, ONS median ~£12,789 general admin) | ~£1,250–£1,400 | Similar shape — one person, you manage them |
| Spouse/family, “free” | £0 + evenings | Unpaid, untrained, single point of failure |
| The tools-only route | £30–80 software | Still needs someone to actually do the work |
| Managed service (Optimize Manager) | Quoted from your diagnostic, in writing | A supervised team plus a software layer — cover, a named owner and a service level built in |
The gap between “can’t afford £1,500 a month” and “the admin still has to happen” is where most trade businesses actually live.
It’s also why ~277 hours a year — more than six working weeks — gets absorbed by admin per tradesperson (NOW Report 2026).
The honest takeaway
None of this argues for outsourcing — it argues for knowing your real number.
The options that matter are priced against your own admin hours, not against a generic benchmark that doesn’t exist yet.
Our free mini-audit puts your actual week on the table in five minutes. The admin-hours calculator prices those hours at ONS wage rates so you can compare like-for-like — owner time versus a real hire versus a managed package.
Sources: ONS Employee earnings in the UK: 2025 (ASHE), provisional, SOC 4122/4110; NOW Report 2026. Loaded-cost figure is our calculation on ONS wages — NI/pension assumptions, not an ONS statistic.