A recent LiveryList poll exploring the relationship between hours worked and perceived earnings provides a stark insight into the reality of yard management.
Respondents were asked how their overall workload — including physical labour, administration, client communication, and business management — compared to their effective hourly earnings.
The results were as follows:
- 4% reported earning well above minimum wage
- 4% reported earning above minimum wage
- 5% reported earning around minimum wage
- 62% reported earning below minimum wage
- 24% do not calculate their hourly wage
- 1% have never considered it
These findings indicate that the majority of yard owners and managers are working extensive hours for returns that fall below minimum wage when time is fully accounted for. A further proportion are not actively measuring the financial value of their time at all, suggesting that workload is often absorbed without being quantified in business terms.
The True Scope of Yard Responsibilities
One of the key challenges in assessing workload is the sheer breadth of tasks involved in running a livery yard. The role extends far beyond daily physical care such as feeding, mucking out and turnout.
A typical workload also includes:
- Client communication and expectation management
- Invoicing, bookings and general administration
- Staff supervision and coordination (where applicable)
- Veterinary liaison and health management
- Maintenance, repairs and contractor oversight
- Tackling welfare issues and individual horse management plans
- Marketing, enquiries and client onboarding
- Compliance, record keeping and insurance requirements
Much of this work is constant, reactive and time-sensitive. It often takes place outside of core yard hours and is rarely visible to clients, despite forming a substantial proportion of the total workload.
This creates a situation where working days are significantly longer than they appear from a purely physical perspective, with many yard owners effectively operating across both labour and managerial roles simultaneously.
Rising Overheads and Financial Pressure
Alongside time demands, financial pressures across the industry continue to increase. Feed, forage, bedding, utilities, insurance and maintenance costs have all risen significantly in recent years, placing additional strain on already stretched budgets.
Staffing costs are also a key factor. Increases in the National Minimum Wage, alongside statutory employer responsibilities such as sick pay, pensions and formal contracts, have made employing yard staff substantially more expensive than in previous years.
For many yards, these increases have not been matched by equivalent rises in income, meaning that additional workload is often absorbed personally rather than outsourced.
This reinforces a cycle in which yard owners take on more hours themselves to offset rising costs, further increasing pressure on time and wellbeing.
Industry Research and Broader Context
Research within equine management, including the recently published academic paper titled Labour, leisure and love: An exploration of UK livery yard management and decision-making around equine care by Dr Tamsin Furtado, has highlighted the complexity of decision-making in yard environments. Her work identifies that equine management is influenced by a combination of horse welfare, environmental conditions, human capacity and financial constraint.
This reflects the reality faced by many yard owners, where decisions are rarely straightforward and must balance multiple competing demands at once. The cumulative effect of these pressures can lead to increased cognitive load and ongoing operational strain.
In many cases, the expectation to maintain high standards of horse care means that workload cannot easily be reduced without impacting welfare standards or service quality.