CalculatorFree tool
Soft strip 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
- 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
- Strip out to shellfittings, boards and ceilings out to the skip£284.69 ÷ 40 m² × 1.20 = £8.54/m²
Benchmark
£8.54/m² 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.
Before anything: what is in the building
On any UK building built or refurbished before 2000, an asbestos refurbishment and demolition survey is required before intrusive work starts. That is a legal duty rather than good practice, and it belongs in front of the programme, not in the middle of it.
It is also the single biggest commercial risk on a strip-out. Finding something on day three stops the job, and an unpriced stop is worse than a priced survey. Neither the survey nor any licensed removal is in this rate — they are specialist work with their own price.
Getting it out is most of the job
Pulling a ceiling down is fast. Carrying it out to a skip is not. On a strip-out the day is dominated by handling and disposal rather than by removal itself, which is why the benchmark of 40 m² a day for two is far lower than the speed of actual demolition would suggest.
- Distance to the skip. Ground floor with the skip at the door is the benchmark. Third floor with a shared stair, or a city-centre site with a timed permit, is a different job entirely.
- Segregation. Waste separated for recycling — timber, metal, plasterboard, general — costs sorting time and saves disposal cost. Plasterboard in particular cannot go in general waste.
- Protecting what stays. Floors, staircases, lifts and anything being retained needs covering before a tool comes out, and that is time before the strip starts.
- Services. Everything wants isolating properly first. A live circuit or an uncapped pipe found the hard way costs a day at best.
The unknown behind the finishes
Soft strip is the trade where the survey matters most and tells you least, because the whole point is that you cannot see behind the plasterboard until you take it off. Old ductwork, redundant services, a wall that turns out to be structural, three previous layers of flooring — all of it appears on the day.
Price the output you expect from what you have seen, and be explicit in the quote about what happens if the building turns out to be different. That is a commercial decision the calculator cannot make for you, but the build-up it produces gives you a defensible per-square-metre figure to reprice against when it does.
What sits outside this rate
Skips and waste disposal — often the largest single cost on a strip-out — go in the job section as lump sums, along with any plant. The asbestos survey, any licensed removal, structural works, and making good afterwards are all separate.
This card prices the labour to strip a building back to shell, with the on-costs, overheads and location handled the same way as every other trade on the site.
Questions people ask
How much soft strip can two people do in a day?
Around 40 m² a day for a two-person team stripping fittings, boards and ceilings back to shell, with the skip reasonably close. Distance to the skip, upper floors, waste segregation and protecting retained finishes all reduce it — handling and disposal dominate the day rather than the removal itself.
Do you need an asbestos survey before a strip-out?
Yes. For any UK building constructed or refurbished before 2000, an asbestos refurbishment and demolition survey is legally required before intrusive work begins. It is not included in this rate, and neither is any licensed removal — both are specialist work priced separately.
Why is waste disposal such a big part of a strip-out cost?
Because most of the day is spent moving material rather than removing it, and the disposal itself is charged by weight or container. Segregating waste for recycling adds sorting time but reduces disposal cost, and some materials — plasterboard in particular — cannot go into general waste at all.
How do you price a strip-out when you cannot see what is behind the walls?
Price the output you expect from what the survey showed, and state clearly in the quote what happens if the building differs. Soft strip is the trade where the unknown is largest, so having a defensible per-square-metre build-up matters most — it gives you something to reprice against rather than an argument.
Does soft strip include making good afterwards?
No. This rate covers stripping back to shell. Structural alterations, capping services, and any making good or preparation for the following trades are separate work, priced on their own.
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
- Hand excavation£85.41/m²
- Shuttering£8.50/m²
- Mesh and rebar£2.56/m²
Pricing a job like these?
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