Unfortunately, how much a person needs to have a decent living is not really what's driving prices: like all markets, what dictates prices is demand and supply. The job may be very easy for a tradesman to do, but if they're the only ones who know how to do the job, and many people need the job done and really can't just do it themselves, they can charge whatever people who need the job are willing to pay to not go without. For most tradesmen , normally there are many "competitors", so they need to keep prices reasonable otherwise people won't hire them. Some jobs which can be easily DIY'd may just disappear as it's not possible to make a living off them, even if a small percentage of people will never DIY anything and would be willing to pay a small amount for the job to be done. I am currently trying to hire builders for some larger projects at home (kitchen/bathroom renovations, custom car port) and I see wild differences in prices, and presumably quality. For these bigger jobs, it really becomes a bet unless you can actually verify the builder's previous jobs, which can be hard as people are not going to just let you into their houses to check how good/bad their bathrooms look. I've had bad experiences before, so I am being extra careful and trying to figure out the builder's level of expertise and capability by talking to them about lots of details (which I learned from previously building a garage).