Pricing off last year's rates is how you lose money on the next job

You've priced this kind of job before, so you reach for the rate you used last time. It felt right then. The trouble is, "last time" might have been eighteen months ago, and materials and labour haven't stood still since.

That's how a contractor who's good at his job still loses money on a tender. Not because the work was wrong, but because the number was old before it was even submitted.

Why the rate you remember is already stale

Material costs move for reasons that have nothing to do with your site: import costs, supplier capacity, demand from other sectors entirely. Labour rates move with availability, and availability shifts by region and by trade faster than most estimators can track while they're also running live jobs. A rate that was accurate for a job priced earlier this year can already be short by the time you're tendering the next one, and the gap only grows the longer that rate sits in your head unrevised.

What "current UK rates" actually means

It doesn't mean a number pulled from a published index and left unquestioned. It means rates checked against what the market's actually doing now, for this job, in this region, for these trades. That's the only way a rate earns the word current. A price built this way moves with the market instead of trailing behind it, which is exactly what protects your margin instead of quietly eroding it.

Pricing on now, not on memory

We price every estimate against current UK rates, checked against the market as it stands, not carried forward from a previous job because it saved time under a deadline. Materials, labour, plant, the lot, priced as they cost today. That's the only way the number you tender on still means something by the time you're on site delivering it.

If your last few tenders were priced off rates you're not sure are still accurate, that's worth putting right before the next one goes in. Send your drawings and we'll price the job on rates that reflect the market now, not the job you priced last year. See a sample estimate to see exactly how that's broken down.

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