Quantity Surveying & Estimating · Nationwide · Virtual
A Quantity Surveyor for Electrical Contractors.
Supply and fix pricing built from measured quantities and your own buying terms, not from a software library and a hopeful guess. A number your client will favour, at a margin you can actually make, with every uncertain item stated and priced separately.
From £35 / Hour
Every service on the list, billed by the hour from a single hour. No retainer, no minimum spend.
No Commitment
Use us for one tender or every job. Nothing to sign, nothing to cancel, nobody on your payroll.
Nationwide
We work virtually. Drawings, schedules and accounts travel by email, so no job is out of reach.
The Problem · Where the Money Goes
Electricians Lose It on Paper, Not on Site.
The installation is right and it tests out. The margin disappears in a price where the materials were estimated rather than measured, and where nobody can explain afterwards how the number was arrived at.
Materials estimated, not measured
On a supply and fix package the materials are often half the price or more. Estimate that half from a rate per point and a feel for the job, and a small percentage error lands on the whole tender rather than on the labour alone.
A number with no build-up behind it
A figure produced quickly, from a library nobody has checked, priced at rates that are not the ones you buy at. When the client queries it, or a variation needs valuing against it, there is nothing underneath to work from.
Everything absorbed into a rate
Fittings not yet selected, builder's work, testing and certification, temporary supplies, return visits and commissioning, all carried in the headline number, against competitors who carried none of it.
Won it, then never managed it
The job is priced, then run on memory. Variations installed and not claimed, applications guessed at, and a final account settled for whatever is offered at the end of it.
None of that is an installation problem. It is a commercial one, and commercial work is the job in an electrical business that nobody has time for, nobody enjoys, and everybody assumes somebody else is doing. It is also where your margin lives.
The Work · What We Price
Housing Plots, Fit-Outs, Design and Build.
We price electrical packages of every size and shape, from a repeat plot rate on a housing development to full commercial fit-out and design and build installations.
Housing Sites
Priced by house type, scheduled by plot
First fix and second fix measured for every house type: circuits, cable, containment, accessories, consumer units, smoke and heat detection, ventilation interfaces, external and garage supplies, and increasingly EV charging and renewables connections. Priced as a rate per plot and scheduled across the development, so the client sees their commitment and you have a rate that survives two years of the same house type.
Commercial & Industrial
Fit-out, refurbishment and industrial
Distribution, sub-mains, containment, small power and lighting, emergency lighting, fire alarm, data and controls. Measured from the drawings and the specification, priced against your own buying terms, with the access, working hours and phasing reflected in the price rather than discovered on site.
Design & Build
Where the specification carries the risk
On design and build the specification is where the money is won or lost, because performance wording can commit you to far more than the drawings show. We read what you are being asked to take on, quantify it, and set out plainly what your price does and does not cover.
We embrace the complexity rather than round it off. Electrical packages are harder to price than most trades because the materials content is large, the specification is detailed and the selections are made late. That is exactly why it pays to have them measured properly.
The Specialism · Supply and Fix
Materials Included Is Where It Gets Hard.
Anyone can price labour. The difficulty in an electrical tender is the half of it that arrives on a wagon, and that is the half most prices are weakest on.
Why a materials-included price goes wrong
- ▸Cable and containment taken as an allowance per point rather than measured along the actual routes, on a job where the routes are the quantity.
- ▸Materials priced at list, or at whatever a library says they cost, rather than at the terms you actually buy on, which are the only prices you will ever pay.
- ▸Fittings and specialist items carried at a guess because the client has not selected them yet, so the risk sits with you by default.
- ▸Waste, offcuts, drums, small fixings and the fifty items that never appear on a drawing left out entirely, then paid for out of the margin.
How we build it instead
- ▸Quantities measured from the drawings: circuits, routes, containment runs, accessories and equipment, so the materials are counted rather than allowed for.
- ▸Priced against your own buying terms and your usual suppliers, because two contractors buying the same schedule do not pay the same money for it.
- ▸Labour built from your gangs' real output on that type of work, not from a default constant that assumes an empty building and a clear run.
- ▸Volatile and long-lead items identified, time-limited or carried as a stated sum, so a copper movement or a twelve-week switchgear lead does not quietly become your problem.
The sweet spot is narrower on electrical work than on any other trade. Because the materials content is so large, the same percentage error moves a great deal more money. That is the argument for measuring it rather than estimating it.
The Specialism · Stated and Priced Apart
State It Separately. Price It Separately.
A clean, competitive headline price for the scope the client asked about, with every uncertain and unselected item listed underneath it, each carrying its own rate. Visible to them, and chargeable when it is instructed.
Why it does not belong in the headline price
- ▸The client is comparing base scope against three other tenders. Absorb the uncertain items and you look expensive on the only figure being compared.
- ▸An item the enquiry never specified was not priced by anyone else either. Carrying it silently does not win you the job, it just gives it away.
- ▸Anything included without being stated is treated as included forever, at whatever quantity and specification the job eventually turns out to need.
- ▸Stated and rated, the same item becomes a variation the client has already agreed the price of. That is the difference between an invoice and an argument.
What we state and price on its own
- ▸Light fittings and specialist equipment not yet selected, carried as stated sums and adjusted on selection.
- ▸Builder's work in connection: chases, holes, ducts, trenches and making good.
- ▸Testing, inspection, certification and commissioning.
- ▸Record drawings, operating and maintenance information and handover documentation.
- ▸Temporary supplies, site power and distribution for other trades.
- ▸Fire stopping of penetrations, and access or scaffold where it is needed.
- ▸Return visits caused by others, out-of-hours working and phased handovers.
Clearly stated is what makes it chargeable. Nothing here is hidden from the client, the opposite. They can see exactly what they are buying and what they are not, which is why a stated price is easier to accept than a vague one.
The Argument · Do Not Guess
A Rate Library Is Not a Price.
Estimating software is a useful tool in experienced hands. What it cannot do is exercise judgement, and on a supply and fix package, judgement is most of the value.
It does not know what you pay
Library prices are generic. Your discount structure, your usual wholesaler and the terms you have negotiated on the product groups you buy most are the actual cost of the job, and no default library has ever seen them.
It does not know this building
Default labour constants assume reasonable access and a clear run. They do not know about the occupied floor below, the phased handover, the two-hour permit window or the fact that you are following three other trades.
There is nothing underneath it
A number without a build-up cannot be defended when the client questions it, cannot be used to value a variation against, and cannot tell you afterwards which part of the job was where you lost the money.
It cannot tell you not to bid
Software will price anything you put in front of it. It will never tell you the job is wrong for you, that the specification carries more than it looks like, or that the programme makes the price undeliverable.
Otherwise every job is a gamble. A priced build-up tells you what the floor is, where the margin sits and what you are exposed to, so the decision on how keen to be is a commercial one taken with the figures in front of you, rather than a bet placed on somebody else's default settings.
After You Win It · Running the Job
Won the Job. Now Set It Up Properly.
The tender is only half of it. What turns a good price into a good year is buying the job to the schedule you priced and claiming everything you install, in the month you install it.
Material schedules
Everything measured from the drawings by plot, floor or area: cable, containment, accessories, boards, protective devices and equipment, in the units your wholesaler quotes in. Use it to buy against your tendered allowance, to place call-offs against the programme, and to see immediately when the job is consuming more than it was priced at.
Prices and tick sheets
Every plot, circuit or area priced and listed on a simple sheet before work starts. The supervisor ticks what is complete and the booking is done: no measuring, no valuing part-finished work, and the same sheet supports your application to the client.
Interim valuations
Monthly applications claiming everything you are owed: first fix, second fix, materials on site, stated sums adjusted, variations and retention, in the format the contract demands and inside the dates it sets.
Variations valued
Additional circuits, revised layouts, upgraded fittings and specification changes, valued against your tendered rates and confirmed in writing while the person who instructed them is still on the job.
Built for supervisors, not surveyors. Everything on this page comes back as a document your team can read, fill in and file. There is no system to log into, no licence to buy and nothing for anybody on site to be trained on.
Settlement · Getting Paid
Getting Paid, and Keeping What You Earned.
The end of a job is negotiated, not calculated. It usually goes badly for whichever side turned up with a folder of delivery notes instead of a valued position.
Final accounts
The package closed on a measured position: installation complete, stated sums adjusted against actual selections, variations valued, delay costs supported and retention accounted for. Negotiated by somebody who settles them for a living.
Claims for delay and disruption
Areas released late, out-of-sequence working, return visits caused by other trades and phased handovers that were never in the programme. Set out from the records in a form the other side is obliged to answer properly.
Payment disputes
Applications cut without explanation, notices served late or not at all, and the statutory deadlines that decide who wins the argument regardless of the merits. Checked when one lands on you, and answered in the same terms.
Assistance getting paid
Where an account has stalled, we set out the position, answer the contractor's surveyor in their own terms and press it to a settlement, including support if it goes as far as adjudication.
This is where the leakage is. Everything left open across the whole job gets decided in a handful of conversations at the end, usually against someone whose full-time occupation is settling them. Ours is too.
What It Costs · One Rate, Every Service
£35 an Hour. From a Single Hour.
Every service in this document is available at the same rate. Where a piece of work is well defined, we will agree a fixed fee for it before anything starts.
Per Hour, From
Tenders and one-off prices, measured take-offs, rate build-ups against your buying terms, schedules of stated sums and exclusions, material schedules, prices and tick sheets, interim valuations, variations, delay records, claims, final accounts and payment disputes: all of it at the same rate, billed by the hour, from a single hour. No retainer, no minimum spend and nothing to cancel.
A housing site electrical tender
Typically 10 to 20 hours
£350 to £700
Every house type measured across first and second fix, priced by plot, with the stated sums and exclusions set out in writing.
A commercial fit-out package
Typically 15 to 30 hours
£525 to £1,050
Measured from the drawings and specification, priced against your buying terms, on a package usually worth six or seven figures.
Monthly valuation and variations
Typically 3 to 6 hours a month
£105 to £210
Claims the materials and labour you have already paid for in the month you paid for them, rather than at the end.
A final account with claims
Typically 12 to 20 hours
£420 to £700
The close of the package argued and evidenced against a surveyor whose full-time occupation is settling them cheaply.
Indicative hours, not quotes. Every job is different. We scope the hours before anything starts and you approve them, so there is no open-ended bill at the end of it.
How It Works · Getting Started
Send the Job. Agree the Hours. Get It Back.
No onboarding, no software to learn and nothing for your supervisors to be trained on. The whole thing runs over email and the phone.
Send us the enquiry
The drawings, the specification, the house types, the schedules, or the account that has stalled. A phone call and an email is enough to start, and there is no form to fill in.
We scope the hours
We come back with what is involved and roughly how long it will take at £35 an hour, or a fixed fee where the work is well defined. You approve it before anything starts.
You get the work back
A measured, priced tender with the build-up behind it and the stated sums listed, material schedules ready to buy against, a valuation ready to go in, or a final account argued and evidenced.
You keep the build-up. The take-off and the rate build-up come to you with the price, so you can defend the number, value variations against it and reuse it on the next enquiry of the same kind.
Start with one price. Most clients test us on a single enquiry, usually the one that is too complicated to rush, before they use us for anything else. That is exactly how it is meant to work.
Virtual, so nationwide. Drawings, schedules and accounts travel by email. We work with electrical contractors across England and Wales without a penny of travel on the bill, and every deliverable arrives as a document your team already knows how to read.
The Full Schedule · Everything We Produce
The Complete Schedule of Documents.
Take any one of them on its own. Most electrical contractors start with a single price they have not got time to do properly and work outwards from there.
Winning the Work
- ▸Tenders for housing sites
- ▸Prices by house type and by plot
- ▸Commercial and industrial fit-out pricing
- ▸Design and build pricing
- ▸Measured take-offs from drawings
- ▸Rate build-ups against your buying terms
- ▸Advice on the level to bid at
Stated Separately
- ▸Schedules of stated sums and rates
- ▸Fittings and equipment not yet selected
- ▸Builder's work in connection
- ▸Testing, certification and commissioning
- ▸Record drawings and O&M information
- ▸Temporary supplies and site power
- ▸Return visits and out-of-hours working
Setting the Job Up
- ▸Material schedules by plot or area
- ▸Buying schedules against the tender
- ▸Prices for every plot, circuit or area
- ▸Tick sheets for weekly booking
- ▸Cost reporting against the tender
- ▸Quality logs for site supervisors
- ▸Programmes and phasing
Running It & Getting Paid
- ▸Interim valuations
- ▸Variations valued
- ▸Adjustment of stated sums on selection
- ▸Records for delay and disruption
- ▸Claims for delay and loss and expense
- ▸Final accounts
- ▸Payment disputes and notices
One job or one document. There is no minimum engagement and nothing to sign. If all you need is a measured take-off for one enquiry that is too big to guess at, that is a perfectly good place to start.
Put a Quantity Surveyor on Your Next Tender Without Putting One on Your Payroll.
Send us the enquiry that is too complicated to rush, the package where the materials are half the price, or the account that has stalled. We will tell you what is involved and how many hours it will take before you commit to anything.