Your Estimate Is the Job Before the Job

Every job starts twice. Once on paper, once on site. If the paper version is loose, the site version costs you money. An estimate is not a guess dressed up in numbers. It is the plan you will be measured against by the client, by your own bank balance, and by every sub you bring onto the job.

What the estimate has to carry

A price that just says labour, materials, plant tells nobody anything. Break it down by trade, by element, by NRM2 groups if the job warrants it, so when something changes halfway through, you can point at the exact line that moved instead of arguing about the whole number. An itemised estimate is the only kind that survives contact with a real building.

Where the money actually leaks

Most overruns do not come from one big mistake. They come from a dozen small ones nobody priced in the first place: access that is tighter than the drawings suggested, services that were never shown, waste removal, attendance on other trades, weather days. None of that is exotic. It is ordinary site life, and if it is not in the estimate it comes straight off your margin.

Contingency is not optional padding

A contingency line is not there to make the client feel better. It is there because every job, however well planned, throws something up. Price it properly, explain what it covers, and do not quietly absorb it into the main figure just to make the total look tidier. A client who understands why the number is what it is will trust you more than one who was handed a figure with no working behind it.

Keep checking the number as the job runs

The estimate you priced in week one is not the same job you are running in week six. Variations, late instructions and site conditions all move the goalposts. Go back to the original breakdown regularly and check it against what is actually happening. Catching drift early means a conversation. Catching it at final account means a fight.

We've built these numbers ourselves, 25+ years contractor-side, and that is what goes into every estimate we send out.

Send your drawings and we will put together a proper itemised estimate you can actually build a job around.

← Back to the blog