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Decking cost per m², built up properly
Start from the benchmark — published wages, a real gang, the costs on top of wages most people forget — then move anything you disagree with. The whole sum stays on the page.
The working
- 1 × tradesperson at £16.40
- £16.40
- Gang wage, per hour
- £16.40
- + 35% on top of wages
- £22.14
- × 8 hours on the tools
- £177.12 a day
- Frame and joistsposts, beams and joists to level£177.12 ÷ 12 m² × 1.20 = £17.71/m²
- Deck boardsboarded, cut and fixed£177.12 ÷ 15 m² × 1.20 = £14.17/m²
Benchmark
£31.88/m² labour
CIJC rates · tradesperson £16.40/hr · gang of 1 · 35% on top · overheads and profit 20%
Materials, scaffold and supervision are not included in this rate.
What’s in this?
- Employer's National Insurance — 15% above £5,000 a year
- Holiday pay — 12.07%
- Pension, auto-enrolment minimum — 3%
- CITB levy — 0.35% of payroll
- Sick pay, training and employer's liability insurance — the remainder
- At 0% this is a CIS subcontractor's labour price — National Insurance, holiday and pension are then theirs to carry, not the job's.
The location range is authored, not measured — our tender data says what was bought where, not what labour costs there.
Price a whole job with this ratePut in the job size and your lump sums — scaffold, plant, skip — and get the job total.
The minimum starts at a day of the gang, priced — £212.54 — because travel, unloading and setting up make a day the honest floor. Type your own, or 0 for none.
Put a job size in and the total appears here.
The frame is the job, and it is the slower operation
Framing runs about 12 m² a day and boarding about 15 — the part nobody sees takes longer than the part everybody does. That is the right way round, and a deck priced on boarding speed alone is a deck priced at about half.
Posts, beams, joists, levels, falls and fixings all happen before a single board is cut. Both operations are on the card because plenty of jobs are one or the other — re-boarding a sound frame is a genuinely common piece of work, and it is the boarding row on its own.
The board decides the joist centres, so specify it first
Timber decking will generally span 400mm centres comfortably. Composite boards are less stiff and most manufacturers want 300 to 400, sometimes less on a diagonal layout. Going from 400 to 300 centres is a third more joists, a third more fixings and a third more frame time — on the same square metres.
Get the board decided before pricing the frame, or price the frame at the tighter spacing and be pleasantly surprised. Working the other way round is how a deck loses money before the first board goes down.
What the ground does to the price
- Level ground. A low deck on flat ground is close to the benchmark: bearers, joists, done.
- Sloping ground. Every post is a different length, each one needs setting, and the higher it gets the more bracing it needs. This is where the day goes.
- Height. Once a deck is high enough to need balustrade and a proper structural check, it is a different job — and the balustrade is separate work again, priced by the metre.
- Ventilation and falls. Air has to move under a deck or it rots from below, and water has to run off it. Both are setting-out decisions made at frame stage.
Cuts, edges and the things that take an afternoon
Boarding is fast in the middle and slow at the edges. Cutting round posts, mitring corners, picture-framing the perimeter, trimming to a wall that is not straight, and keeping the gaps consistent across the whole deck are all detail work — and a deck is judged entirely on its edges and its gaps.
Boards, joists, posts, postcrete and fixings are materials. Balustrade, steps and skirts are separate work. This rate is the labour to build the frame and lay the boards on it.
Questions people ask
How long does it take to build a deck?
Around 12 m² a day for framing and 15 m² a day for boarding, so a deck is roughly two operations' worth of days on the same area. Sloping ground, height and a lot of cut edges all pull those figures down; a low deck on level ground with straight edges is the benchmark case.
What spacing should decking joists be at?
Timber decking generally spans 400mm centres comfortably; composite boards are less stiff and most manufacturers specify 300 to 400mm, sometimes tighter on a diagonal layout. Going from 400 to 300 centres is about a third more joists, fixings and frame time on the same area, so decide the board before pricing the frame.
Is the frame or the boarding the bigger part of a decking job?
The frame. It runs slower per square metre than boarding — around 12 m² a day against 15 — and it is where levels, falls, posts and bracing are dealt with. A deck priced on boarding speed alone is priced at roughly half.
Does a decking price include balustrade and steps?
No. This rate covers framing and boarding. Balustrade is priced by the metre, and steps are their own piece of work. Boards, joists, posts, postcrete and fixings are all materials, outside every rate on this site.
Why does a raised deck cost so much more than a low one?
Because every post becomes a different length that has to be set and braced, the structure needs proper design consideration as it gets higher, and balustrade becomes necessary. A low deck on level ground is bearers and joists; a raised deck on a slope is a structure.
Where these figures come from
The wages are the national minimums agreed between employers and unions, republished each July. The costs on top of them are the statutory ones every employer actually pays. The outputs — how much a gang gets through in a day — are blended from published estimating guidance, and they are the part worth arguing with, which is why every one is a control you can move.
Other trades
- Bricklaying£35.68/m²
- Blockwork£23.84/m²
- Plastering£8.50/m²
- Rendering£38.34/m²
- Floor screed£2.83/m²
- Concreting£7.92/m²
- Tiling£17.71/m²
- Roofing£32.80/m²
- Block paving£25.56/m²
- Tarmac driveways£15.34/m²
- Resin driveways£16.61/m²
- Painting£14.17/m²
- Stud walls£17.71/m²
- Patios£31.95/m²
- Repointing£26.57/m²
- Plasterboarding£12.39/m²
- Fencing£25.56/m²
- Turfing£3.42/m²
- Coving£7.08/m²
- Loft insulation£4.27/m²
- External wall insulation£38.34/m²
- Soft strip£8.54/m²
- Hand excavation£85.41/m²
- Shuttering£8.50/m²
- Mesh and rebar£2.56/m²
Pricing a job like these?
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