CalculatorFree tool
Plasterboarding 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
- Dot and dabboards bonded to blockwork£177.12 ÷ 30 m² × 1.20 = £7.08/m²
- Tape and jointjoints taped, filled and sanded£177.12 ÷ 40 m² × 1.20 = £5.31/m²
Benchmark
£12.39/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.
Dot and dab or tape and joint — decide before you price
They are different work with different outputs. Dot and dab bonds board straight onto blockwork with adhesive: 30 m² a day, and the wall is ready for a skim. Tape and joint fixes board to a frame and finishes the joints with tape and filler instead of plaster: 40 m² a day, but with drying time between coats and sanding afterwards.
Most jobs are one or the other, so the card starts with dot and dab on and tape and joint at zero. A job that is genuinely both — dabbed external walls and a boarded stud partition — is both operations, priced separately, on their own areas.
Ceilings are the number that ruins a day rate
Boarding a ceiling is not boarding a wall. A 12.5mm sheet at 2400 × 1200 weighs around 22kg, and putting one overhead needs two people or a board lifter, holding it flat and level while it is fixed. The same square metres take substantially longer than a wall, and it is the work that tires a gang out.
If your job is mostly ceilings, take the output down accordingly. The rate cannot know which way up you are working, and the difference is not small.
Where the rest of the time goes
- Cutting round services. Every socket, switch, downlight and pipe is measured, marked and cut, and each one has to be right first time because a board with a hole in the wrong place is scrap.
- Handling and access. Getting full sheets up a staircase, round a turn and into a back bedroom is real time before any fixing happens. Some jobs get boarded in smaller sheets purely because full ones will not go up.
- Setting out. Boards want to break on a stud, joints want to be staggered, and joints in ceilings want to run the right way. Getting that wrong shows up later as cracking.
- Drying between coats. On tape and joint, filling is two or three passes with drying and sanding between them — programme time rather than labour, but it decides whether the room is one visit or three.
Board specification changes both weight and price
Moisture-resistant, fire-rated, acoustic and impact boards are all heavier or harder to cut than standard board, and acoustic board is noticeably slower to handle. Double-layer boarding for fire or sound is two passes over the same area — two operations’ worth of days on one wall.
The boards, adhesive, tape, filler and fixings are materials. This rate is the labour to get them on the wall and finished to the stage you have chosen.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between dot and dab and tape and joint?
Dot and dab bonds plasterboard directly to blockwork with adhesive dabs and is normally skimmed afterwards, running around 30 m² a day. Tape and joint fixes board to a timber or metal frame and finishes the joints with tape and filler instead of a plaster skim, running around 40 m² a day but with drying and sanding between coats.
How much plasterboard can one person fix in a day?
Around 30 m² a day dot and dab, or 40 m² a day tape and joint, on walls in reasonable conditions. Ceilings are considerably slower because a 12.5mm 2400 × 1200 sheet weighs around 22kg and needs two people or a board lifter to hold overhead while it is fixed.
Why are plasterboard ceilings more expensive than walls?
Weight and access. A standard sheet is around 22kg and has to be held flat and level overhead while it is fixed, which needs two people or a lifter, and the work is far more tiring. The same area takes substantially longer than a wall.
Does plasterboarding include the skim?
No. Dot and dab leaves a wall ready for a plasterer, and skimming is priced separately on the plastering calculator. Tape and joint is an alternative finish that avoids a skim altogether — which is the choice being made when you pick one operation over the other.
Does board type affect the price?
Yes. Moisture-resistant, fire-rated, acoustic and impact boards are heavier or harder to cut than standard board, and acoustic board is noticeably slower to handle. Double-layer boarding for fire or sound performance is two passes over the same area, so price it as two operations rather than 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
- Patios£31.95/m²
- Repointing£26.57/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?
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