CalculatorFree tool
Work out your cost per square metre
A labour rate built up in the open — the gang, their wages, the costs on top of wages most people forget, and how much they get through in a day. Start from our benchmark, then move anything you disagree with. Free, no account, nothing saved.
- Bricklaying£35.68/m² labourGang of 2+1 · 16.7 m² a dayWork it out for your gang →
- Blockwork£23.84/m² labourGang of 2+1 · 25 m² a dayWork it out for your gang →
- Plastering£8.50/m² labourGang of 1 · 25 m² a dayWork it out for your gang →
- Rendering£38.34/m² labourGang of 1+1 · 10 m² a dayWork it out for your gang →
- Floor screed£2.83/m² labourGang of 2 · 150 m² a dayWork it out for your gang →
- Concreting£7.92/m² labourGang of 1+2 · 70 m² a dayWork it out for your gang →
- Tiling£17.71/m² labourGang of 1 · 12 m² a dayWork it out for your gang →
- Roofing£32.80/m² labourGang of 2 · 3 operationsWork it out for your gang →
- Block paving£25.56/m² labourGang of 1+1 · 15 m² a dayWork it out for your gang →
- Painting£14.17/m² labourGang of 1 · 15 m² a dayWork it out for your gang →
- Stud walls£17.71/m² labourGang of 1 · 12 m² a dayWork it out for your gang →
Benchmarks, not quotes: every figure is built from the CIJC Working Rule Agreement rates of 20 July 2026 — tradesperson £16.40/hr, labourer £13.18/hr, the agreement’s “craft rate” and “general operative” — with 35% on top for NI, holiday and pension, overheads and profit at 20%, and materials excluded. Open a trade and the whole sum is on the page.
Where these benchmarks come from
The wages are the published national minimums agreed by employers and unions — not our estimate, and updated each July. The extras on top of wages are the pieces employers genuinely pay: employer’s National Insurance, holiday, pension and the CITB levy. The outputs — how much a gang gets through in a day — are blended from published estimating guides and stated on every card, because they are the part worth arguing with.
That is why every control is on the page. If you think a bricklayer lays more than 500 bricks a day, slide it — the benchmark is where the sum starts, not where it has to finish. Nothing you set here is saved or sent anywhere.
Pricing a job like these?
HubTrack is where small construction firms keep their compliance documents, their jobs and their evidence trail in one place — method statements and risk assessments prepared for you to check and sign off, and a record of who signed what and when. The same engine that reads the contract documents behind this page reads yours inside HubTrack.