CalculatorFree tool
Patios 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
- Indian stone on a full bedlaid to falls and pointed, base already in£319.46 ÷ 12 m² × 1.20 = £31.95/m²
- Porcelain on a full bedslower cutting and tighter joints — pick one finishslid to zero — out of the price
Benchmark
£31.95/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.
This rate lays on a full bed, which is the only way that lasts
Paving laid on a full mortar bed is what this rate prices, and it is the method worth pricing. Spot bedding — five dabs under each slab — is quicker, and it is why patios rock, crack and let water sit under them. A full bed takes longer and it is the difference between a patio that lasts twenty years and one that gets relaid.
If somebody has quoted you materially less than this figure for the same slab, the bedding method is the first thing to ask about.
Sandstone or porcelain changes the day
Indian sandstone runs around 12 m² a day for two; porcelain runs nearer 10. Porcelain is harder to cut, needs a wet saw, chips if you rush it, and usually wants a slurry primer on the back of every slab before it goes down — an extra handling step on every single piece.
Sandstone has its own quirk: unless it is calibrated, the slabs vary in thickness, so the bed is adjusted slab by slab to keep the surface true. Neither is harder work than the other overall, but they are different work, which is why they are separate operations on the card. Turn on the one you are laying.
The base and the falls are decided before anything is laid
- The base is not in this rate. Dig, muck away, sub-base and compaction are separate work, and on a new patio they are often more than the laying. Price them on the excavation and sub-base calculators.
- Falls. Water has to run away from the house and somewhere sensible, and the fall is set in the base before a slab goes down. Getting it wrong is the callback.
- Damp-proof course. Paving finishing too high against a wall bridges the DPC, and that is a problem inside the house rather than outside it.
- Cuts and edges. Curves, steps, a circle feature or a run against an irregular wall are all saw time, and a small patio is mostly edge.
You have seen the job; the calculator has not
Every patio is different, and the difference is almost always in the ground and the layout rather than the slab. A flat rectangle over a good sub-base is the benchmark. A sloping garden with a step, a curved edge and access through a side gate is a different job at the same square metres.
That is what the survey is for and what the output slider is for. Set the number you know that job will run at, add the plant and skips as lump sums, and the minimum charge will hold the floor on the small ones — because a two-person crew turning up for 12 m² is still a full day.
Questions people ask
How much patio can two people lay in a day?
Around 12 m² a day for Indian sandstone on a full mortar bed, or nearer 10 m² for porcelain. Porcelain is slower because it needs a wet saw to cut, chips more easily, and usually requires priming the back of every slab before it is laid.
Should patio slabs be laid on a full bed or spot bedded?
A full mortar bed. Spot bedding — dabs under each corner and the middle — is quicker but leaves voids under the slab, which is why spot-bedded patios rock, crack and hold water. A full bed is the method this rate prices and the one that lasts.
Does a patio price include the base?
Not in this rate. Excavation, muck away, sub-base and compaction are separate work and on a new patio are often more than the laying itself. They are priced on the excavation and sub-base calculators, then added in the job section.
Why is porcelain paving more expensive to lay than sandstone?
Because it takes longer per square metre. Porcelain needs a wet saw for cutting, is more brittle at the edges, and generally requires a slurry primer applied to the back of each slab before bedding — an extra handling step on every piece. Expect around 10 m² a day against 12 for sandstone.
How much fall should a patio have?
Enough to run water away from the building rather than towards it, set in the base before any slab is laid. The other rule that matters is finishing level: paving must not bridge the damp-proof course, because that turns an outside problem into an inside one.
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
- 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
- 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.