CalculatorFree tool
Fencing cost per m, 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
- 1 × labourer at £13.18
- £13.18
- Gang wage, per hour
- £29.58
- + 35% on top of wages
- £39.93
- × 8 hours on the tools
- £319.46 a day
- Posts and panelsposts dug and concreted, panels hung£319.46 ÷ 15 m × 1.20 = £25.56/m
Benchmark
£25.56/m labour
CIJC rates · tradesperson £16.40/hr + labourer £13.18/hr · gang of 1+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 — £383.36 — 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 ground decides the day, and nothing else comes close
Fencing is priced per metre and the metres are the easy part. What actually sets the day is what happens when you put a spade in the ground: clean workable soil digs quickly and takes concrete predictably, and almost nothing else does.
- Rock or hard core. A post hole that needs a breaker is a different job from one that needs a shovel.
- Made ground and rubble. Common on any site that has been built on before, and it collapses back into the hole as fast as you dig it.
- Heavy clay. Digs slowly, holds water, and moves with the seasons once the fence is up.
- Roots and services. A mature hedge line is roots the whole way along, and an unmarked service run turns a post hole into an incident.
You have walked the line and put a spade in it. The calculator has not — so set the output to what you found.
A slope is a different fence, not a slower one
Fencing across a slope is either stepped — each panel level, with the gap under it growing — or raked, which usually means closeboard rather than panels because panels do not rake. Both need every post height set individually, and both take considerably longer than a straight run on the flat.
If your line falls, price it as the job it is rather than the metres it measures. This is one of the clearest cases on the site where two identical-looking quantities are entirely different work.
What else sits outside the benchmark
- Taking the old fence out. Removing a rotten fence, digging out old concrete post bases and getting it all to a skip is real work and is not in this rate. Old concrete spurs are the worst of it.
- Access. Everything is carried. Posts, panels, concrete and spoil all go through the house or round the side, and a rear garden with no side access is a job with a barrow in it all day.
- Post type. Concrete posts and gravel boards are heavier and slower to set than timber, but they last.
- Gates. Priced individually, never per metre — a gate is hanging, latching and a properly braced post.
Why a survey beats a published rate here
Published fencing prices per metre are close to meaningless because the range is so wide. Whoever has stood on the line knows in ten minutes what a published average will never capture: how the ground digs, what is coming out first, how far everything has to be carried, and whether the run is level.
The calculator exists to turn that judgement into a defensible price rather than replace it. Set your gang, set the metres a day you know that line will run at, and the wages, the costs on top of them and your overheads all follow automatically.
Questions people ask
How much fencing can two people put up in a day?
Around 15 metres a day for a two-person crew digging posts, concreting them in and hanging panels in reasonable ground. Rock, made ground, heavy clay, tree roots, a sloping line or poor access can all cut that substantially — the ground has more effect on fencing output than anything else.
Why do fencing quotes vary so much per metre?
Because the ground varies enormously and the metres do not show it. Clean soil digs quickly; rock needs a breaker, made ground collapses back into the hole, clay is slow and wet, and a hedge line is roots the whole way. Two identical 20-metre runs can be a day apart.
Does a fencing price include removing the old fence?
Not in this rate. Taking down a rotten fence, digging out old concrete post bases and disposing of it all is separate work, and old concrete spurs in particular are slow. Add it as a lump sum in the job section along with the skip.
How is fencing on a slope priced?
As a different job rather than a slower one. A sloping line is either stepped — each panel level with a growing gap beneath — or raked, which generally means closeboard rather than panels because panels cannot rake. Either way every post height is set individually, which takes considerably longer than a level run.
Are gates included in a per-metre fencing rate?
No. Gates are priced individually because the work is hanging, latching and providing a properly braced post rather than covering distance. The same is true of anything else that is a one-off along the run rather than a repeated unit.
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
- Decking£31.88/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?
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.