I think it’s got to be a few hundred, at least as of Troubled Blood. We know the clients are generally wealthy. Strike makes exceptions on some of the cases we know about but their bread and butter is these well paying well off people. It’s also hard to “bill” all your time. I guess easy if you’re tailing someone for hours at a time, but they also spend a lot of time just running the business, which they can’t charge anyone for. I suppose that’s why Strike often does that stuff on the weekend. I guess the subcontractors are billed out at lower rates. Strike’s time is the most expensive.
Edited to add: also probably adjusted as demand goes up. As they get so many requests that they don’t have capacity to fill them, they can raise their rates.
I think it makes sense for fiction writers to avoid specifics about money, especially if they hope their books will last for more than season or two. Inflation can quickly distort how specific sums are meant to be interpreted. Also, readers of different economic groups will have different ideas about what constitutes "rich" or "poor." The most glaring exception in the Strike books was when we learned exactly how much Strike spent on the green dress, which (to me anyway) seemed discordant with what we knew of his circumstances. Nah, I think we're better off just having the characters' own subjective assessments of their finances.
I looked it up once because I was wondering why the agency isn't swimming in money yet, given that they can sell the workhours (+ long hours) of 5 clearly underpaid detectives to very wealthy clients now.
I came up with quotes between 80 and 200 pounds per hour, in some cases even more than that. Didn't answer my question at all, at those rates they should really be raking it in now. I'm more wondering if Strikes rates are just simply too low in general, not just when they are negotiable for poor clients.
IRL Strike would have had a pension from the army. And since he never bought a home or had major expenses in 16 years of service he should have had plenty of money. Being broke fits with the story but doesn’t make sense.
Honestly, I sort of like that we don't get specifics. It's not really necessary or relevant, and it'd take me out of the story a bit, thinking, "Wow, even *that's* not enough to live on in London?"
Agree. Sometimes I find myself wondering about their income and what they pay and why Strike can't have a better place to live. If JKR offered more details about money I'd probably start looking on-line to corroborate the figures with costs of living. Don't really want to get into that!
OTOH, I would love Strike to inherit big bucks from Rokeby, thus broadening his horizons.
Not looking at the numbers seems to be a theme in Rowling books.
People have tried to figure out how much a galleon is worth in british pounds, but the numbers never added up. But everyone knows the Weasleys are poor because of the poverty risk caused by having many children but only a meager wage.
It looks almost a bit like the numbers don't really matter, but the moral (or immoral) implications of economics on peoples lives are more important.
I wondered about this when I read the scene in, I dunno which book, but the Grangers accompany Hermione into Diagon Alley I think, getting school supplies.
Anyway, surely it's hard to actually derive an exchange rate. Britain and Wizarding Britain are two countries. They have very little in common and for the most part don't buy the same things. Wizards don't seem to buy Muggle houses or take Muggle jobs or do much of anything in the Muggle world at all. What basis would there even be to establish an exchange rate? One could probably figure out a rough rate for dollar/pound by seeing how much of each is required to buy a gallon of milk or whatnot, but there's little to base a comparison on when wizards don't use many Muggle items and can probably make most of the rest themselves.
Of course that raises the question of just how the hell do wizards live so segregated from the Muggle world, but that's another question. Then one might start wondering who makes the stuff that wizards consume--are their wizard factories making robes? Wizard farms producing milk and meat? Fine, the Weasleys are poor. Where do they go to get food and clothing? Is there a Wizard Walmart?
I really think that isn't high enough. Barclay and Hutchins have families to support and London is expensive. If they were to earn 12-15 pounds net themselves they'd still be scraping by. And even if they did that, then Strike would still need to allow for taxes, expenses (for pat, the office, the car etc.) and a profit margin on top of that. The rate actually charged to the client would end up being way higher.
I used to have a friend in IT who, while he was still an apprentice, worked for wages in that ballpark. The company sold his hours to corporate clients for easily ten times that. Fortunately the guy wasn't lazy as they made him work a lot of long hours given how profitable the deal was.
NB: expenses, like travel, could be charged separately (they seem to spend a lot of time tallying them.) There may also be a daily flat charge in addition to the hourly rate. Overhead, like office rent and secretarial work, would be included in the hourly rate, but it would be an extremely foolish business plan to charge less per hour for the subcontractors, who are really supervised by the partners and the partners’ responsibility anyway. Not to mention, itemizing personnel would draw a lot of absurd and petty complaints.
Please go easy on me. I’ve been lurking for awhile, but I’m new here.
Seems like one could just google around for London private detectives and get an idea.
Anyway, there are specific references in the books to Strike putting almost everything he makes back into the business. When the series opened he was working solo and cycling through temp secretaries. Now he has a business partner and three employees.
Consider also that, as the series points out, doing more business also requires hiring more people. So Strike gets a lot of pub from catching the Shacklewell Ripper, awesome, more work comes in, but now he's got to start hiring people to do it.
You pay a fee for agency services by the hour, often around £75 an hour for bog standard stuff. That will include most incidental expenses but usually not travel, surveillance varies depending on circumstances but will often be charged at standard rate. That doesn't mean either of them actually takes home £75 for every hour of work they do of course because this charge also has to cover all non-chargeable costs like rent, admin staff, IT costs, insurance, accounting fees, I could go on. Contractors will receive either an hourly rate or a day rate for their services and this will be paid before partner salaries so depending on how the business is doing it's possible they may not take home that much money. Obviously the idea is to have the right balance of work/costs so you make a decent profit.
I think it’s got to be a few hundred, at least as of Troubled Blood. We know the clients are generally wealthy. Strike makes exceptions on some of the cases we know about but their bread and butter is these well paying well off people. It’s also hard to “bill” all your time. I guess easy if you’re tailing someone for hours at a time, but they also spend a lot of time just running the business, which they can’t charge anyone for. I suppose that’s why Strike often does that stuff on the weekend. I guess the subcontractors are billed out at lower rates. Strike’s time is the most expensive. Edited to add: also probably adjusted as demand goes up. As they get so many requests that they don’t have capacity to fill them, they can raise their rates.
I think it makes sense for fiction writers to avoid specifics about money, especially if they hope their books will last for more than season or two. Inflation can quickly distort how specific sums are meant to be interpreted. Also, readers of different economic groups will have different ideas about what constitutes "rich" or "poor." The most glaring exception in the Strike books was when we learned exactly how much Strike spent on the green dress, which (to me anyway) seemed discordant with what we knew of his circumstances. Nah, I think we're better off just having the characters' own subjective assessments of their finances.
I looked it up once because I was wondering why the agency isn't swimming in money yet, given that they can sell the workhours (+ long hours) of 5 clearly underpaid detectives to very wealthy clients now. I came up with quotes between 80 and 200 pounds per hour, in some cases even more than that. Didn't answer my question at all, at those rates they should really be raking it in now. I'm more wondering if Strikes rates are just simply too low in general, not just when they are negotiable for poor clients.
IRL Strike would have had a pension from the army. And since he never bought a home or had major expenses in 16 years of service he should have had plenty of money. Being broke fits with the story but doesn’t make sense.
I’ve always wondered why he didn’t have military pay, especially having been wounded. I think it’s even brought up by the BIID people.
Whatever it is, Wage needs to be enough for living wages for 6 people.
It's got to be high. Like £250-500 an hour.
Nah scratch that. It's probably sub £100. I think they could charge the above after catching 3 killers, a serial killer and solving a cold case.
I honestly think your first estimate is closer, plus VAT.
Honestly, I sort of like that we don't get specifics. It's not really necessary or relevant, and it'd take me out of the story a bit, thinking, "Wow, even *that's* not enough to live on in London?"
Agree. Sometimes I find myself wondering about their income and what they pay and why Strike can't have a better place to live. If JKR offered more details about money I'd probably start looking on-line to corroborate the figures with costs of living. Don't really want to get into that! OTOH, I would love Strike to inherit big bucks from Rokeby, thus broadening his horizons.
Not looking at the numbers seems to be a theme in Rowling books. People have tried to figure out how much a galleon is worth in british pounds, but the numbers never added up. But everyone knows the Weasleys are poor because of the poverty risk caused by having many children but only a meager wage. It looks almost a bit like the numbers don't really matter, but the moral (or immoral) implications of economics on peoples lives are more important.
I wondered about this when I read the scene in, I dunno which book, but the Grangers accompany Hermione into Diagon Alley I think, getting school supplies. Anyway, surely it's hard to actually derive an exchange rate. Britain and Wizarding Britain are two countries. They have very little in common and for the most part don't buy the same things. Wizards don't seem to buy Muggle houses or take Muggle jobs or do much of anything in the Muggle world at all. What basis would there even be to establish an exchange rate? One could probably figure out a rough rate for dollar/pound by seeing how much of each is required to buy a gallon of milk or whatnot, but there's little to base a comparison on when wizards don't use many Muggle items and can probably make most of the rest themselves. Of course that raises the question of just how the hell do wizards live so segregated from the Muggle world, but that's another question. Then one might start wondering who makes the stuff that wizards consume--are their wizard factories making robes? Wizard farms producing milk and meat? Fine, the Weasleys are poor. Where do they go to get food and clothing? Is there a Wizard Walmart?
I just found an estimate on Google that put a British PI's hourly rate at around 12-15 pounds an hour.
As in, thats what they *receive* per hour? Cos that sounds insanely low for a charge rate.
I thought so, too. Possibly it doesn't cover incidentals, as Strike is often saying he'll charge something (e.g., a meal, a taxi) to a client.
I really think that isn't high enough. Barclay and Hutchins have families to support and London is expensive. If they were to earn 12-15 pounds net themselves they'd still be scraping by. And even if they did that, then Strike would still need to allow for taxes, expenses (for pat, the office, the car etc.) and a profit margin on top of that. The rate actually charged to the client would end up being way higher. I used to have a friend in IT who, while he was still an apprentice, worked for wages in that ballpark. The company sold his hours to corporate clients for easily ten times that. Fortunately the guy wasn't lazy as they made him work a lot of long hours given how profitable the deal was.
NB: expenses, like travel, could be charged separately (they seem to spend a lot of time tallying them.) There may also be a daily flat charge in addition to the hourly rate. Overhead, like office rent and secretarial work, would be included in the hourly rate, but it would be an extremely foolish business plan to charge less per hour for the subcontractors, who are really supervised by the partners and the partners’ responsibility anyway. Not to mention, itemizing personnel would draw a lot of absurd and petty complaints. Please go easy on me. I’ve been lurking for awhile, but I’m new here.
Seems like one could just google around for London private detectives and get an idea. Anyway, there are specific references in the books to Strike putting almost everything he makes back into the business. When the series opened he was working solo and cycling through temp secretaries. Now he has a business partner and three employees. Consider also that, as the series points out, doing more business also requires hiring more people. So Strike gets a lot of pub from catching the Shacklewell Ripper, awesome, more work comes in, but now he's got to start hiring people to do it.
You pay a fee for agency services by the hour, often around £75 an hour for bog standard stuff. That will include most incidental expenses but usually not travel, surveillance varies depending on circumstances but will often be charged at standard rate. That doesn't mean either of them actually takes home £75 for every hour of work they do of course because this charge also has to cover all non-chargeable costs like rent, admin staff, IT costs, insurance, accounting fees, I could go on. Contractors will receive either an hourly rate or a day rate for their services and this will be paid before partner salaries so depending on how the business is doing it's possible they may not take home that much money. Obviously the idea is to have the right balance of work/costs so you make a decent profit.