Sectoral Employment Order for Construction: What You Must Pay Your Crew Since 1 August 2026

Since 1 August 2026, a qualified carpenter, plasterer or bricklayer on an Irish building site must be paid at least €23.74 an hour. A skilled general operative with more than two years in the trade must get at least €21.37. Those are the minimum rates in the Sectoral Employment Order for construction, and they sit well above the €14.15 national minimum wage. On top of the wage, you pay into an approved pension, death-in-service and sick pay scheme for every worker it covers.

So if you employ people on the tools in construction, the order probably applies to you. Here is how to check, which rate each person on your crew gets, and what a standard week now costs you as the employer.

What a Sectoral Employment Order is

A Sectoral Employment Order, or SEO, is a legal minimum for pay and conditions in one industry. The Labour Court recommends it after a request from unions or employers. Once both Houses of the Oireachtas approve the draft, the Minister for Enterprise makes it as a statutory instrument. The power comes from section 17 of the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015. It is not optional. Under section 19, it binds every employer and worker in the sector, whether or not they were part of the request.

For construction, the main order is S.I. No. 234 of 2019. It sets the worker categories, the working week and overtime. The current pay, pension and sick pay rates come from the Sectoral Employment Order (Construction Sector) 2024, S.I. No. 620 of 2024. That order raised the rates in two steps, on 1 August 2025 and 1 August 2026, and no further step is scheduled. The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), the State body that inspects employers and hears employment complaints, enforces it.

Does it cover your business and your crew?

According to the WRC, two tests decide it. Your business has to operate in the construction sector, and the person has to work in it as an apprentice, new entrant, operative or craftsperson. The sector is defined broadly. It covers building, alteration, repair, painting, decorating, glazing and demolition, plus site clearance, foundations, drainage and the roads and paths inside a site. For example, a builder with two employees doing house extensions is inside it, and so is a painter and decorator with a small crew.

The order covers people working under a contract of employment, including workers supplied through an agency. It doesn’t cover a genuine subcontractor running their own business. That line is the one Revenue draws for Relevant Contracts Tax, and it’s worth testing honestly. If your “subbie” works only your hours, with your tools, for nobody else, the WRC may see an employee owed SEO rates.

Electricians and plumbers have their own sectoral orders for electrical contracting and mechanical building services. This one doesn’t cover them, so check those separately if you employ them.

Which category each worker falls into

The rate depends on the worker’s category, not their job title on the payslip. S.I. 234 of 2019 sets out five groups.

• Craftspersons: bricklayers and stone layers, carpenters and joiners, floor layers, glaziers, painters, plasterers, stone cutters, wood machinists, slaters and tilers.
• Category A: scaffolders with an Advanced Scaffolding Card and four years’ experience, banks operatives, steel fixers, crane drivers and heavy machine operators.
• Category B: skilled general operatives with more than two years in the sector.
• New entrant operatives: general operatives over 18 who are entering the sector for the first time. They stay on this rate for two years.
• Apprentices registered under the Industrial Training Act 1967, paid a percentage of the craft rate.

Here are the minimum rates in force since 1 August 2026, from the order and the WRC’s construction page. The weekly figure assumes the standard 39-hour week.

A first-year apprentice’s €7.91 is below the national minimum wage. That’s lawful, because craft apprentices are excluded from the minimum wage rules. Budget 2027 raises the national minimum to €14.94 from January, but it doesn’t touch these rates, which are all higher. Our Budget 2027 guide covers the changes that do apply.

Hours, overtime and public holidays

The normal week is 39 hours, Monday to Friday. That’s four eight-hour days between 7am and 5pm, then seven hours on Friday finishing by 4pm. Overtime rates come from the 2019 order.

• Monday to Friday, from normal finishing time to midnight: time and a half.
• Monday to Friday, from midnight to normal starting time: double time.
• Saturday: time and a half for the first four hours, then double time.
• Sunday: double time for all hours.
• Public holidays: double time, plus an extra day’s leave.

So a plasterer who works a Saturday morning to finish a job costs you €35.61 an hour for those four hours. The order says nothing about travel time, subsistence or “country money”. Those come from your own contract terms, not the SEO.

The pension, death-in-service and sick pay contributions

Every employer covered by the order must have a pension scheme and a sick pay scheme for each worker it covers. Pension membership starts at 18. Since 1 August 2026 the minimum pension contribution is €32.89 a week from you and €21.95 from the worker. Death-in-service cover adds €1.14 each a week under the order. Sick pay costs €2.37 from you and €0.63 from the worker, a rate that has applied since August 2025.

The order doesn’t name a scheme. The established one in the industry is the Construction Workers’ Pension Scheme (CWPS), a multi-employer occupational pension run by an independent trustee company. Its sick pay arm is the Construction Workers’ Sick Pay Trust. According to CWPS, membership satisfies the order for pension, sick pay and death-in-service. Its own death-in-service charge is €1.17 each, slightly above the order’s minimum. A separate €1 a week for the Construction Workers Health Trust is a voluntary deduction, not part of the SEO.

There’s one useful side effect. A worker whose pension contributions go through payroll into an occupational scheme like CWPS is exempt from auto-enrolment for that job, under gov.ie’s employer guidance. As a result, the 1.5% contribution to My Future Fund, the State’s auto-enrolment pension, in our employer PRSI and first-hire guide doesn’t stack on top for these workers.

What a standard week costs you

Take an illustrative crew of one craftsperson and one Category B operative, each on a 39-hour week in late October 2026 with no overtime. Employer PRSI, the social insurance contribution you pay on wages, is 11.40% on all pay once weekly pay is above €552, according to the Department of Social Protection’s SW 14 guide. We’ve applied it to the wage only.

In other words, that’s €2,032.65 a week for the pair before overtime, leave cover, insurance or a van seat. Through CWPS, add 3 cent a head for its higher death-in-service rate. Ask your payroll provider whether employer PRSI also applies to your scheme contributions, because we couldn’t confirm that from an official source.

Records and what happens if you underpay

Under section 22 of the 2015 Act, you must keep records that show you comply, for at least three years. Missing records are an offence, and in a dispute the burden of proving you paid correctly shifts to you. A worker can bring a complaint to the WRC. An adjudication officer can order you to comply and award compensation of up to 104 weeks’ pay. WRC inspectors can also check the records of every employee, not just the one who complained.

One date per worker is worth diarying. When someone passes two years in the sector, or finishes their apprenticeship, their category changes. Note those dates for each worker now. Then their rate goes up on the right week, not after a complaint.

For the crew in our example, that weekly €2,032.65 is the floor your day rates have to clear before margin. Price your next job on that number, not on the €14.15 minimum wage.