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Mesh and rebar 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
- 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
- A193 mesh laidon chairs, lapped and tied£319.46 ÷ 150 m² × 1.20 = £2.56/m²
Benchmark
£2.56/m² 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.
Fast work, and the last chance to get it right
Laying A193 mesh runs around 150 m² a day for two, which makes it one of the cheapest rates on this site per square metre. It is also the last thing anybody sees before the concrete covers it permanently.
Mesh in the wrong position does nothing useful. Too low and it sits in the bottom of the slab where it is not needed; too high and it has no cover and will eventually rust and spall. Neither failure is visible on the day, and both are expensive years later.
Chairs, laps and cover are the whole job
- Chairs and spacers. What holds the mesh at the right height while people walk on it and concrete lands on it. Enough of them is not optional.
- Laps. Sheets overlap so the reinforcement is continuous — commonly specified as a set number of squares, and always to the drawing rather than to habit.
- Tying. Laps tied so nothing shifts when the gang is walking over it during the pour.
- Cover. The concrete between steel and surface is what protects it. It is on the drawing, and it is the number that decides whether the slab lasts.
Bar is a different job from mesh
The benchmark on this card is sheet mesh laid flat — the quickest reinforcement there is. Loose bar to a bending schedule is slower work by a wide margin: cutting and bending to the schedule, positioning to the drawing, and tying every intersection.
Beams, columns, pile caps and ground beams are cages rather than sheets, and they are properly a steelfixer’s job. If that is what you are pricing, take the output down hard or price it as its own trade rather than stretching a mesh rate to cover it.
What is not in the rate
The mesh, bar, chairs and tying wire are materials. The shuttering is separate work, and so is the pour — three operations that happen in sequence on the same slab, each with its own calculator and its own day.
Sequence is worth pricing deliberately. Reinforcement usually goes in immediately before the pour, which means a short, awkward visit rather than a full day’s run — exactly the case the minimum charge exists for.
Questions people ask
How much mesh can be laid in a day?
Around 150 m² a day for two people laying A193 sheet mesh on chairs, lapped and tied. It is one of the fastest operations in groundwork. Loose bar to a bending schedule is far slower, and reinforcement cages for beams or columns are a steelfixer's job rather than this rate.
Why does mesh need chairs or spacers?
To hold the reinforcement at the correct height in the slab while people walk on it and concrete is placed. Mesh lying on the ground provides almost no benefit, and mesh pushed too high loses its concrete cover and will eventually rust and spall. Neither fault is visible once the pour is finished.
How much should mesh sheets overlap?
To whatever the drawing specifies — commonly expressed as a number of squares — so that the reinforcement is continuous across the slab. Laps are tied so nothing shifts during the pour. It is a specification matter rather than a rule of thumb, and it should be read from the drawing every time.
Is rebar priced the same as mesh?
No. Sheet mesh laid flat is the quickest reinforcement there is; loose bar cut and bent to a schedule, positioned and tied at every intersection, is considerably slower. Reinforcement cages for beams, columns and pile caps are specialist steelfixing and should be priced as their own trade.
Why is there a minimum charge on a fast operation like this?
Because reinforcement usually goes in immediately before the pour, which makes it a short, awkward visit rather than a full day's run. The gang still travels, unloads, works and leaves — so the day, not the square metre, is the unit being sold.
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
- Hand excavation£85.41/m²
- Shuttering£8.50/m²
Pricing a job like these?
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