Calculator
Stud walls cost per m², built up properly
The record
- Checked by
- Carl Winson
- Built from
- CIJC Working Rule Agreement
- Wage date
- 20 July 2026
- Grades
- craft rate and general operative
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
- Frame and board both facesready for the plasterer£177.12 ÷ 12 m² × 1.20 = £17.71/m²
Benchmark
£17.71/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.
A stud wall is rarely one visit, and the rate cannot say so
The 12 m² a day here is framing and boarding both faces. On a wall with nothing in it, that is genuinely one pass. On almost any real wall it is two: frame it, stop, let the electrician and the plumber run their first fix through it, come back and board.
The labour is the same either way. What changes is the day - you have two mobilisations instead of one, and the second is waiting on somebody else’s programme. Price the labour from the card, and price the return visit as what it is: a day of a person, which is exactly what the minimum charge is holding.
Openings are where a stud wall gets expensive
A blank partition is fast work. A partition with a door in it needs the opening set out to the door and frame, doubled studs either side, a head trimmed and packed level, noggins where the ironmongery lands, and boards cut round all of it.
The square metres barely change and the hours change a lot. A small wall with a door is often slower in absolute terms than a long blank one, which is the clearest example on this whole site of why area alone is a poor way to price.
What is inside the wall changes the build
- Stud centres. 400 or 600 centres is a specification decision that changes both the material and the time. Heavy boards and tiled walls want 400.
- Acoustic performance. Insulation between studs, resilient bars, staggered studs or a double frame - each step up is more work, and resilient bars in particular slow the boarding considerably.
- Fire rating. Usually double boarding, which is two passes over the same area, plus fire stopping at the head and around penetrations.
- Anything heavy hanging on it. A wall-hung basin, a TV, a radiator or grab rails need noggins or ply pattresses in known positions - trivial when you do it during the frame, expensive when you do not.
What this leaves out
Skimming, taping or filling is a separate job - plastering or plasterboarding, on their own cards. So is the door, the frame and the ironmongery. And the first fix that runs inside the wall belongs to the electrician and the plumber, priced on their own work.
Timber or metal studs, boards, insulation and fixings are all materials. What this card gives you is the labour to stand the wall up and close it.
Questions people ask
How long does it take to build a stud wall?
Around 12 m² a day for one person framing and boarding both faces, on a straightforward partition. A wall with a door in it is substantially slower per square metre because the opening needs doubled studs, a trimmed head, noggins and boards cut around all of it.
Why does a stud wall usually take two visits?
Because services run inside it. The frame goes up, the electrician and plumber first-fix through it, and only then can it be boarded. The labour is the same as doing it in one pass, but there are two mobilisations and the second one waits on somebody else's programme.
Should studs be at 400 or 600 centres?
It depends on what the wall carries and what goes on it. 600 centres is common for standard partitions; 400 is normal where the wall is tiled, takes heavy boards, or needs the extra rigidity. It is a specification decision that changes both the material quantity and the build time.
Does the stud wall rate include plastering?
No - it covers framing and boarding both faces, ready for a finish. Skimming is priced on the plastering calculator and tape-and-joint on the plasterboarding calculator. The door, frame and ironmongery are separate again.
How do you make a stud wall soundproof?
Insulation between the studs is the starting point, then resilient bars, staggered studs or a fully independent double frame as the requirement rises. Each step costs time as well as material, resilient bars in particular slow the boarding, so set the output to match the specification rather than a bare partition.
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
- 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
- Mesh and rebar£2.56/m²
Pricing a job like these?
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