Forestry Journal:

This piece is an extract from essentialARB's the Arborist newsletter, which is emailed out at 6PM on the first of every month, with a round-up of the latest goings-on in arboriculture. 

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WHEN it comes to pay, tree-care workers have long been getting a raw deal. While the UK's forestry professionals may look on the nation's arborists with green-eyed envy, you'll struggle to find a tree surgeon lighting up cigars with five-pound notes.

Even at a time when trees are (rightly) held up as one of the world's most important natural assets, the idea of paying those responsible for caring for them a fair rate seems an alien concept to many. Maybe it's because tree surgery is a relatively new phenomenon, dating back to just the late 19th century and John Davey, but arboriculture is always having to justify its existence and expertise.

And it's a profession which, in the UK at least, appears to be suffering stagnant rates.

In February's essentialARB, Steve Davison, an experienced arborist and tree climber, explored the idea that arborists can be paid a far fairer wage on the continent than the British Isles.

I won't spoil his piece here (you really should read it for yourself), but there are a few lines from it that are worth quoting.

He wrote: "For this article I contacted tree firms in North London for regular self-employed work. To my surprise I was offered £180 per day by two firms to work every day in London. With some negotiation, one firm agreed on £200 per day. This is less than I’ve been asking for as a day rate with all my equipment.

Forestry Journal: Have rates increased for arborists along with inflation? Have rates increased for arborists along with inflation? (Image: Getty/stock)

"Yes, £200 a day is a £40,000 annual turnover, but after expenses, taxes and the cost of living in London, what is left for a life outside of work, or a family life? It’s a demanding, unforgiving role. What’s more, doing it every day can cause long-term physical problems, from fibromyalgia and carpal tunnel syndrome to problems associated with exhaust inhalation, and it carries the risk of more immediate, life-changing injuries, not to mention death."

£200 a day may seem a fair rate to some, but a bit of digging suggests that's approximately the same tree surgeons could have expected a decade ago. Take this interesting thread from 2014 on Arbtalk, one of the world's leading arb forums, in which that figure was repeatedly quoted when a poster asked about day rates for tree surgeons.

There are, of course, many complexities to the discussion and no two quotes will be the same. It also depends on what equipment the individual arborist can supply.

But if we take the £200 figure and apply inflation across the last decade to it (via the Bank of England), then it suggests that tree surgeons should be expecting a minimum of £263 per day in 2024.

Whether or not that matches the reality on the ground (or up in the canopy) is up for debate.