How to price a building job in the UK

Define what the estimate covers

Identify the work areas, specifications and boundaries before entering costs. A price for a kitchen floor package may include preparation, supply and fitting, or only part of that work. Your estimate needs to follow the scope you intend to offer.

List the activities and purchases that support that result. The worksheet has twenty cost rows; use them for identifiable inputs rather than a long collection of unexplained allowances. Keep supporting drawings or measurements available in the work record.

Separate unresolved scope from an omitted cost. If a specification is still undecided, obtain the choice or price a defined option. If the scope is known but a supplier figure is missing, leave that named input visibly incomplete instead of using zero.

Enter quantities and units

Choose the template closest to your work before entering figures. Labour-only separates site time, preparation, travel and overhead inputs. Supply-and-fit prompts materials, delivery, installation and making good. Subcontract-led separates supplier packages from your own interface costs. Keep relevant rows and remove genuinely inapplicable ones; each named row needs a reviewed quantity and rate.

Open Your estimate and enter a category, cost-item description, unit and quantity in the yellow cells. The unit explains what the rate applies to: hours, days, square metres or a defined package. Avoid comparing two figures whose units differ.

The example uses 18 m² of selected floor material at £28 per square metre, producing £504. That quantity and rate illustrate the row calculation. Your measured area, ordering quantity and supplier terms need their own review.

Use the Basis / source note column to record how a quantity was established. Distinguish checked measurements from an allowance or customer-supplied figure. The checked-date field helps identify information that may need revisiting before the offer is sent.

If you include a quantity allowance, explain it. A measured area and an ordering quantity can differ, but the worksheet does not prescribe a universal waste percentage. Use the actual material, layout and purchasing basis rather than copying a flat allowance from the sample.

Cost labour and management time

Estimate the relevant time and use an internal cost rate consistent with your method. Do not enter a customer selling rate as though it were a labour cost without understanding the resulting calculation. The model later adds a margin to the selected cost basis.

The worked estimate contains 48 site hours at an illustrative £30, giving £1,440. It also includes eight management hours at £35, giving £280. The two labour-related lines total £1,720.

Review whether management and preparation are already included elsewhere. A project-specific management line and a general overhead allocation can both be legitimate inputs, but their contents need to be distinct. Counting the same time twice distorts the estimate.

Use actual relevant payroll or business-cost information through your normal estimating process. The sample does not calculate employment costs or establish a recommended UK day rate. Its purpose is to show how explicit hours and rates become a reviewable cost.

Add materials, plant and bought work

Enter supplier costs against the items and quantities you need. The example adds a £90 associated-material allowance to the £504 floor material, making £594 materials in total. Describe the contents of an allowance so somebody reviewing it can check for omissions.

Plant uses three days at £45, producing £135. Review hire duration, delivery and collection arrangements for the actual work. A short period of site use may not equal the charged hire period, and an extra delivery cost may need its own line.

Bought subcontract work is represented by one defined package at £650. Use the supplier offer and its scope as your basis. If the subcontractor supplies materials included in that figure, check you have not also priced those purchases as your own materials.

Keep supplier figures connected to their validity and specification. A familiar rate from another project may help an early allowance, but it is not confirmation that the same item or package is available on those terms now. Identify what needs checking before offering.

Review preliminaries, overheads and risk

The worksheet separates job-specific setup and support from general business overhead allocation. The example enters £220 for preliminaries and £350 for overheads. Those amounts illustrate explicit categories; they are not standard percentages for construction work.

Name the basis of an overhead allocation. The running costs of the business may include several items, but allocating all of them independently to every small Job would be misleading. Use the method established for your business and review its assumptions.

The example also includes a £250 estimate risk allowance, making its cost basis £3,919. State what an allowance addresses rather than using it to conceal a scope question. A genuine unknown may require further assessment before a useful offer can be prepared.

Check category overlaps before choosing a selling amount. Management time, setup, plant and overheads can be counted in more than one place if their definitions are vague. Use the notes column to make the selected basis understandable.

Calculate and check the selling amount

Enter the target margin as a whole percentage, such as 20 for 20%. With the example’s £3,919 cost basis, the workbook divides by 0.80 and produces £4,898.75 before tax. The amount above the selected cost basis is £979.75.

That percentage describes this estimating model. It is not automatically a realised net business profit, because the cost basis and later recorded costs determine what the remainder represents. The separate markup-versus-margin resource explains the denominator difference in more detail.

A named row lacking a numeric quantity or cost shows Missing input, and the price result stays unavailable. The subtotal can still contain the completed lines, so read the missing-line count before treating it as a full estimate.

Use a consistent tax basis for the costs and selling calculation appropriate to the actual business and supply. The workbook infers no treatment and adds no tax. Review that position before presenting the customer-facing total.

Turn the review into an offer

Review the estimate against the intended scope once every named line is complete. The spreadsheet can identify missing inputs on existing rows, but it cannot detect a task you never listed. Compare the build-up with the actual work and support requirements.

Carry the reviewed selling amount into an identifiable Quote with included scope, exclusions and relevant terms. Keep private cost notes separate from the customer-facing description. Completing an estimate does not itself issue an offer or agree the work.

Save the estimate assumptions with the work so you can compare recorded costs after delivery on the same basis. Start today with one defined package: enter its quantities and rates, resolve the missing lines and challenge any allowance whose contents you cannot explain.