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Construction Estimating

Price it early enough and the number still holds by the time you're on site

My Project Estimating  ·  Construction Estimating

You price the job, then the start date slips. Three months later you're finally mobilising, and the rates you priced against aren't the rates you're now paying for materials or labour. The number you bid with is no longer the number the job actually costs, and there's no one to send that difference to except yourself.

A price has a shelf life

A rate for concrete, steel, or a subcontractor package is only good for as long as the market stays roughly where it was when you priced it. The longer the gap between pricing the job and actually buying the materials and booking the labour, the more chance that gap has cost you money you never accounted for.

Price close to when you'll actually build

The way to protect a tender from this is to price it as close as you reasonably can to when the job will actually start, using rates that reflect the market at that point, not the market from whenever the enquiry first landed. If there's a long gap between bid and start, that's worth flagging and pricing for, rather than hoping it comes out in the wash.

We price every job against current UK rates at the point we measure it, so the number in your bill of quantities reflects what things cost now, not a stale figure from months back. If your start date is likely to slip, that's worth discussing before you submit the tender, not after you've mobilised and found the rates have moved on you.

Bid a number that survives the wait

A tender is only as good as its shelf life. Price it early enough, on current numbers, and give yourself the best chance the figure still holds when the diggers actually turn up.

Send your drawings and we'll measure the job and price it against current rates. See a sample estimate to see how the pricing is set out.

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