Contractor and tradesmen stays in Manchester
Contractor accommodation in Manchester
Whole apartments for crews and tradesmen working in and around Manchester. Parking, a washing machine, a real kitchen and a weekly rate that beats four hotel rooms.
Or call reservations on 0333 880 7213
The short answer
Contractor and tradesmen accommodation in Manchester, by the week.
We let whole apartments in Manchester to contractors, tradesmen and site crews working on jobs in the city and around Greater Manchester. You get the entire property rather than a hotel room: separate bedrooms, a kitchen, a washing machine and somewhere to sit at the end of a shift. Stays run from a few nights to several months, the rate drops for longer bookings, and we invoice properly so it goes through the books without an argument. Booking direct rather than through a platform keeps the cost down, and you are dealing with the people who actually run the property.
Called a few different things
People search for this half a dozen ways and they all mean the same thing. Contractors accommodation, accommodation for contractors, accommodation for tradesmen, workers accommodation Manchester, rooms for contractors, Manchester contractor accommodation. What we actually do is let you a whole apartment by the week rather than a room by the night, with parking, a washing machine and an invoice your office will accept.
The maths most crews do first
Four hotel rooms for six weeks is not a small number.
That is the calculation that usually brings people to this page, and it is the right one to do. Four single rooms at a Manchester city centre hotel, six nights a week, for a six week job, is a serious bill, and it buys you four separate rooms, no kitchen, no washing machine, and a breakfast you are usually too early for. One apartment sleeping four costs materially less over the same period and is a better place to come back to. It suits you if:
Where you would be
Where the work is in Manchester.
Where the sites actually are
Construction here clusters in a few places: the towers along the southern edge of the city centre, Ancoats and New Islington, the Mayfield area behind Piccadilly, Salford Quays and Trafford Wharfside, and the airport side of south Manchester. Industrial and plant work sits further out, at Trafford Park, Carrington and the estates ringing the M60. Which of those you are on decides everything about where staying makes sense.
Trafford Park is its own world
Trafford Park is one of the largest industrial estates in Europe and it runs on its own grid of roads between the Ship Canal and the M60. From the city centre it is a straightforward drive off peak and a slow one at half seven. There is a Metrolink line through it now, but for anyone carrying tools that is theory rather than a plan.
Somewhere to put the van
This is the part people leave until the night they arrive. Most city centre car parks have a two metre height barrier, which rules out a Transit with a rack on the roof, and the residential streets around the centre are permit controlled. What you want is off street parking you can see from the flat, and it is worth asking about before anything else.
The clean air zone, as it stands
Greater Manchester spent years planning a charging clean air zone and then did not bring one in, so unlike Birmingham or parts of London there is currently no daily charge for driving an older van into the city. That position could change. It is worth checking at the time rather than taking anyone's word for it, including ours, before you price a long job.
The M60 and the Mancunian Way
The M60 rings the whole conurbation, which means almost any site is reachable provided you are on the right side of it. The Mancunian Way is the elevated road carrying you across the south of the centre, and it backs up badly from around half seven and again from four. The same run can take three times as long an hour later in the morning.
Early starts change the whole calculation
A seven or half seven start means leaving in the dark for half the year and beating the traffic rather than sitting in it. That makes distance from site matter far more than it would for an office job: ten extra miles is nothing at half five and something else entirely at eight. Most crews would rather be plainly close than centrally located.
Drying wet kit, every night
You will come back wet more weeks than not between October and March, and a flat with a washer dryer combination that never quite dries is a genuine problem over a long contract. A radiator with space in front of it, a rack, and somewhere to leave boots that is not the bedroom is the difference between dry kit by six and damp kit all week.
Feeding a crew at odd hours
Breakfast is a butty van or a cafe near the gate, and both shut long before you knock off. If there are three or four of you sharing, what saves money is a kitchen with a real oven and a full sized fridge, plus a supermarket you can reach without driving into the centre. Eating out every night for a twelve week contract is the expensive way to do it.
Booking direct
The same property, without the platform's cut.
Our properties are on Airbnb and Booking.com as well, and you are welcome to book there. Booking direct also avoids the guest service fee the big platforms add on top, which on a longer Manchester stay is not a small number. Booking with us direct also means you are talking to the people who actually run the property rather than a message thread inside an app, which matters when you need an early check-in or an extra week.
For longer jobs it is worth messaging us rather than booking online. If the dates run past what the calendar shows, or you need two properties near each other for a bigger crew, we can usually sort something that the booking page cannot.
In every property
What is actually there when you arrive.
Manchester questions
What people ask about staying in Manchester.
Where in Manchester would I actually be?
Manchester's professional work sits around Spinningfields and St Peter's Square, the tech and media side in NOMA and Ancoats, and broadcast out at MediaCity on the tram. A central flat covers the first three on foot and the fourth in twenty minutes.
Can I park in Manchester?
Most of the city centre is permit or paid parking and a lot of apartment blocks have no allocated space at all. If you are bringing a car, ask about the specific property, because it is the single most common thing people get wrong here.
Which part of Manchester should I be in?
Most of what you would need day to day sits in the city centre, the Northern Quarter, Ancoats and the inner suburbs. Tell us where you need to be each morning rather than which postcode you fancy, and we will be honest about what is close to it and what only looks close on a map.
How easy is it to get around Manchester without a car?
Metrolink reaches Altrincham, Bury, Rochdale, MediaCity and the airport from the middle of the city, and Piccadilly puts London inside two hours.
What is there to do in Manchester on a day off?
The Northern Quarter, Ancoats, Castlefield and the museums are all walkable from a central base, and the Peak District is inside an hour by train or car. On a long stay the Peaks are what most people end up using at weekends.
Questions we get asked
What contractors ask us before booking.
Do you do weekly or monthly rates for contractors?
Yes. The nightly rate drops as the stay gets longer, and for anything over a month it drops again. Tell us the dates and the number of people and we will give you a total rather than a per-night figure you have to multiply.
For jobs where the end date is not fixed, which is most of them, message us rather than booking the exact nights online. We would rather hold flexibility than have you rebook three times.
Can we get a VAT invoice?
Yes, made out to the company, with the dates and the address on it. Tell us the company name and any purchase order reference when you book and it will be right first time rather than something you have to chase from site.
Is there parking for a van?
It depends on the property, so we will tell you straight before you book. Some have allocated parking, some have a permit scheme, and some are street parking only, which in central Manchester is not cheap. Ask us and you get the actual answer for the actual property rather than a general reassurance.
How many can sleep in one place?
Our Manchester properties sleep up to four in separate bedrooms. For a bigger crew we can often put you in two properties close together, or look at what we have in the wider area. That is a conversation rather than something the booking calendar handles, so message us.
Can we check in late or start very early?
Yes. Check-in is self service with a code, so there is no reception to get to and no one to wake up. Early starts are the norm for this kind of stay and nothing about the property gets in the way of a six o'clock alarm.
What if the Manchester property is already booked?
Then we will say so rather than leaving you guessing. We manage a small number of properties in Manchester and a wider portfolio across the country, so if the dates do not work here we will tell you what else is realistically close. If we have nothing that suits, we will say that too.
Check availability
Tell us the dates and how many of you.
Check what is free on the booking site, or message reservations with the job dates and the crew size and we will come back with a total.
Reservations, seven days a week, on 0333 880 7213