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Hand excavation cost per m³, 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
- 2 × labourer at £13.18
- £26.36
- Gang wage, per hour
- £26.36
- + 35% on top of wages
- £35.59
- × 8 hours on the tools
- £284.69 a day
- Dig and cart to skipby hand where a machine cannot reach£284.69 ÷ 4 m³ × 1.20 = £85.41/m³
Benchmark
£85.41/m³ labour
CIJC rates · labourer £13.18/hr · gang of 2 · 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 — £341.63 — 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.
Hand digging is priced per cubic metre, and it is slow
Around 4 m³ a day for two people is a fair benchmark for digging by hand and carting the spoil to a skip. For comparison, a small excavator does that in well under an hour. The rate looks high per cubic metre because the work genuinely is — you are buying human effort where machinery cannot reach.
That is the honest answer whenever a hand-dig figure is questioned: it is not a premium, it is the absence of a machine.
Why the ground matters more here than anywhere
- Soft soil. The benchmark case. Digs steadily, barrows easily.
- Heavy clay. Slow to cut, heavy to lift, and it sticks to everything — shovel, barrow and boots.
- Made ground and rubble. Common on any previously developed site. Collapses back, needs picking out by hand, and fills a skip faster than its volume suggests.
- Rock or old concrete. A breaker job rather than a digging job, at a fraction of the output.
- Water. A trench that fills needs pumping, and everything below the water line is slower and messier.
You have seen the trial hole or you know the area. Set the output to what that ground actually gives you.
Depth changes the job, and safety is not optional
Output falls with depth because the spoil has to be lifted further — at chest height you are throwing it, above that you are double-handling into a barrow. And any excavation deep enough to work in needs proper support or battering: trench collapse is one of the most serious risks in groundwork and it happens without warning.
Shoring, trench boxes and the time to install them are not in this rate. Neither is the survey for buried services, which comes before a spade goes anywhere near an unknown line.
Where the spoil goes is half the price
Digging it out and getting it off site are two different problems. A skip at the trench edge is the benchmark; barrowing forty metres through a house to a skip on the road is a different day at the same cubic metres.
Skips are a lump sum in the job section, and on a hand dig they are frequently the larger number. Contaminated or non-standard spoil is more again, and worth confirming before quoting.
Questions people ask
How much can two people dig by hand in a day?
Around 4 m³ a day in reasonable soil, including barrowing the spoil to a skip. Heavy clay, made ground, rubble, rock or water in the excavation all reduce it substantially, and output falls with depth because the spoil has to be lifted further.
Why is hand excavation so expensive per cubic metre?
Because it is human effort replacing machinery. A small excavator will move in under an hour what two people move in a day, so wherever a machine can get to, it should. Hand digging is priced for the situations where access, services or proximity to a structure rule a machine out.
When do you have to dig by hand rather than by machine?
Where a machine cannot physically reach — enclosed rear gardens, inside buildings, between existing structures — and where digging near known buried services or close to foundations makes mechanical excavation unsafe. It is a decision made from the survey, not from the volume.
Does the excavation rate include the skip?
No. Skips and spoil disposal go in the job section as lump sums, and on a hand dig they are often the larger cost. Contaminated or non-standard spoil costs more again and is worth confirming before a price is given.
What safety measures does a hand-dug trench need?
Any excavation deep enough to work in needs proper support or battering back, because trench collapse happens without warning and is one of the most serious risks in groundwork. Shoring, trench boxes and the time to install them sit outside the digging rate, as does a buried-services survey before starting.
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
- 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
- Shuttering£8.50/m²
- Mesh and rebar£2.56/m²
Pricing a job like these?
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