Quantity Surveying & Estimating · Nationwide · Virtual
A Quantity Surveyor for Scaffolding Contractors.
From straightforward housing plots to complex designed scaffolds and everything in between. Priced to win, with the extras stated and rated rather than buried, so the hire, the adaptations and the clearing all get paid for.
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
Scaffolders Lose It on Paper, Not on the Job.
The scaffold goes up on time and comes down when it is asked for. The margin disappears in the price that carried too much, the hire nobody claimed, and the adaptations that were done on a nod.
Everything loaded into one rate
Fans, netting, loading bays, edge protection and a generous hire period all absorbed into the headline number. The client compares it against three quotes that did not include any of that, and you lose a job you were never actually expensive on.
Hire running long, never claimed
The programme slips, the scaffold stands for another eleven weeks and nobody varies anything. It is the single largest leak on most scaffolding contracts and it happens quietly, a week at a time.
Adaptations done on a nod
A lift moved for the roofers, boards lifted for the bricklayers, a bay taken out for a delivery. Asked for on site by somebody with no authority to order it, done the same afternoon, never confirmed and never charged.
Off-hired late, settled cheap
Nobody tells you it is finished with, so the kit stands. Then the account is settled against a surveyor with dates and records, and yours are on a phone in a wagon.
None of that is a scaffolding problem. It is a paperwork problem, and paperwork is the one job in a scaffolding 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
From Housing Plots to Complex Scaffolds.
We price scaffolding of every size and shape, from a repeat plot rate on a housing site to designed and temporary works scaffolds on constrained city sites, and everything in between.
Housing Sites
Priced by house type, scheduled by plot
A rate per plot for each house type, built from the actual lifts, gable heights, returns and boarding rather than from what the last site went out at. Set out as a schedule across the whole development with the hire period stated against each plot, so the client can see their commitment and you have a rate you can live with for the length of the site.
Commercial & Industrial
The everyday work in between
Refurbishment, cladding, roofwork, industrial and retail: the jobs that are neither a simple plot nor a designed structure. Measured properly from the drawings and the survey, with the access constraints, the pavement and the working hours all reflected in the price rather than discovered afterwards.
Complex & Designed
Where the risk is in the detail
Beamed and cantilevered scaffolds, birdcages, temporary roofs, façade retention, public access and gantries, and anything requiring bespoke design rather than a compliant standard configuration. These are the jobs where the difference between a good year and a bad one is decided at tender.
We know how scaffolding contracts are written. Where the erect and dismantle sits against the hire, how the free period is treated, what an adaptation is worth and which items every main contractor tries to treat as included. That is what stops a price being either generous or naive.
The Specialism · Finding the Level
The Right Rate Wins It and Still Pays.
There is a narrow band between the price that loses you the work and the price that loses you money on it. Finding that band deliberately, rather than by feel, is most of what estimating actually is.
How prices end up at the wrong level
- ▸Everything the enquiry did not ask for priced into the headline rate anyway, which makes you expensive on the only number the client is actually comparing.
- ▸A percentage added across the whole price for risk. Spread evenly it costs you tenders you should have won, and it still does not cover the item you were worried about.
- ▸Rates carried forward from the last site, on different heights, different returns and a different hire period.
- ▸Or the opposite: a keen number put in to keep the wagons moving, with nobody working out what the hire period alone was worth.
How we set it instead
- ▸Built from the measured scaffold and your own real costs: erect and dismantle labour, transport, materials on hire, yard and overhead, so you know what the floor is before anybody talks about the ceiling.
- ▸The erect and dismantle priced against the hire deliberately, so the job is not carried entirely by a free period that the programme is going to eat.
- ▸Risk money placed where the risk actually is, so the straightforward elevations price keenly and the difficult ones carry what they need to.
- ▸You are told what the number is, what it assumes and where the margin sits, so the decision on how hungry to be stays yours, taken with the figures in front of you.
Maximise the value, minimise the risk, get the work. Keen enough to win it, strong enough to make money on it, and an honest number on the ones you should walk away from before they cost you a year of kit standing on somebody else's site.
The Specialism · Stated Extras
State the Extras. Price Them. Get Paid.
A scaffolding price is a defined scope and a defined hire period. Anything the enquiry did not ask for belongs in a clearly stated schedule with a rate against it: visible to the client, and chargeable when it is instructed.
Why it does not belong in the headline price
- ▸The client is comparing base scope against three other quotes. Absorb the extras into that number and you look expensive on the only figure being compared.
- ▸An item nobody mentioned was not in anyone else's price either. Including it silently does not win you the job, it just gives it away.
- ▸Anything included without being stated is treated as included forever, however much of it the job 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 separately, with a rate
- ▸Additional hire beyond the period allowed, at a stated rate per week.
- ▸Additional loading bays, hoist towers and material landings.
- ▸Fall arrest and edge protection systems, fans, netting, sheeting and brick guards.
- ▸Adaptations and alterations instructed by other trades once the scaffold is up.
- ▸Clearing scaffold, re-visits, and removal of materials left on site.
- ▸Permits, licences, pavement and highway occupation, and traffic management.
- ▸Standing time, out-of-hours and weekend working, and abortive visits.
Clearly stated is what makes it chargeable. The aim is a clean, competitive headline price the client can say yes to, with every other item visible and rated underneath it, so nothing is a surprise to them and nothing is free from you.
After You Win It · Setting the Job Up
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 knowing what kit is where, what it is earning, and having a simple way of booking work from the first week.
Material schedules
Tube, fittings, boards, beams, ladders, edge protection and sheeting measured from the scaffold you have priced. It tells you what has to leave the yard, what has to be hired in, and what a job is tying up before you commit the kit to it.
Transport and plant schedules
Loads, lifts and deliveries set against the programme rather than arranged the night before. Wagon movements are a real cost on a scaffolding job and they are the one nobody puts against the plot they belong to.
Prices and tick sheets
Every lift, elevation and plot priced and listed on a simple sheet before work starts. The supervisor ticks what is erected. That is the booking done: no measuring, no valuing part-finished work, and the same sheet pays your gangs and supports your application.
On-hire and off-hire register
A plot-by-plot record of what went up, when, and when it came off hire. It is the document the whole additional hire claim rests on, and it takes a supervisor thirty seconds a week to keep.
Set it up once, at the start. The whole system is built in the first week, before anybody is too busy to do it. After that it runs itself, and it is the reason the job you priced well is still the job you are being paid for in month nine.
Running the Job · Monthly Commercial Work
Running the Job Without Losing the Paperwork.
Monthly documents that claim the hire you are owed, price the adaptations you were asked for, and leave a record somebody can use when the job is questioned a year later.
Additional hire claimed monthly
The hire period tracked against the programme, and the extra weeks claimed in the month they arise at the rate you tendered. Claimed monthly it is an application. Left to the end it is an argument you will probably lose, because by then nobody agrees when the scaffold was finished with.
Adaptations and variations valued
Lifts moved, boards lifted, bays removed and returns added for other trades. Valued against your tendered rates and confirmed in writing while the person who asked for it is still on the site.
Interim valuations
Monthly applications claiming everything you are owed: erect and dismantle complete, hire to date, adaptations, extras and retention, in the format the contract demands and inside the dates it sets.
Records for delay and standing
Abortive visits, gangs standing because an elevation was not ready, and scaffold that could not come down because the site was not finished with it. Recorded at the time on sheets the site manager signs.
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 contract is negotiated, not calculated. It usually goes badly for whichever side turned up with a folder of tickets instead of a valued position.
Final accounts
The contract closed on a measured position: scaffold erected and dismantled, hire run to the off-hire dates, adaptations valued, extras applied and retention accounted for. Negotiated by somebody who settles them for a living and knows what a normal outcome looks like.
Claims for delay and standing
Programme overrun, elevations released late, abortive visits and kit held on site long after it was finished with. Set out from the hire register and 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 contract 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, rate build-ups, schedules of stated extras, exclusions and qualifications, material and transport schedules, prices and tick sheets, hire registers, interim valuations, adaptations, additional hire claims, delay 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 scaffold tender
Typically 8 to 15 hours
£280 to £525
Every house type priced by plot with the hire period stated, and a schedule across the whole development.
A complex or designed scaffold
Typically 12 to 25 hours
£420 to £875
Measured, priced and qualified, with the extras stated and rated, on a job where getting it wrong ties up kit for a year.
Monthly valuation and hire claim
Typically 3 to 6 hours a month
£105 to £210
Claims the additional hire and adaptations in the month they arise, instead of arguing about dates at the end.
A final account with claims
Typically 12 to 20 hours
£420 to £700
The close of the contract 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 elevations, the house types, the site photographs and the scope, 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 priced tender with the extras stated and rated, schedules and tick sheets ready to issue, a valuation ready to go in, or a final account argued and evidenced. Use us again next job, or do not.
Virtual, so nationwide. Drawings, schedules and accounts travel by email. We work with scaffolding contractors across England and Wales without a penny of travel on the bill.
Start with one price. Most clients test us on a single enquiry, often the one that arrived at the worst possible moment, before they use us for anything else. That is exactly how it is meant to work.
No system to log into. Every deliverable arrives as a document: a schedule, a tick sheet, a hire register, a priced tender or a report. Your supervisors already know how to read one, which is the only training anybody needs.
The Full Schedule · Everything We Produce
The Complete Schedule of Documents.
Take any one of them on its own. Most scaffolding contractors start with a single price they have not got time for and work outwards from there.
Winning the Work
- ▸Tenders for housing sites
- ▸Prices by house type and by plot
- ▸Commercial and industrial pricing
- ▸Complex and designed scaffold pricing
- ▸Rate build-ups from your own costs
- ▸Erect, dismantle and hire splits
- ▸Advice on the level to bid at
Stated Extras
- ▸Schedules of stated extras and rates
- ▸Additional hire rates per week
- ▸Loading bays and hoist towers
- ▸Fall arrest and edge protection
- ▸Fans, netting, sheeting, brick guards
- ▸Clearing scaffold and re-visits
- ▸Permits, licences and traffic management
Setting the Job Up
- ▸Material schedules
- ▸Transport and plant schedules
- ▸Prices for every lift and elevation
- ▸Tick sheets for weekly booking
- ▸On-hire and off-hire registers
- ▸Handover and inspection log formats
- ▸Cost reporting against the tender
Running It & Getting Paid
- ▸Interim valuations
- ▸Additional hire claimed monthly
- ▸Adaptations and variations valued
- ▸Records for delay and standing time
- ▸Claims for delay and abortive visits
- ▸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 schedule of stated extras to attach to the prices you already send out, that is a perfectly good place to start.
Put a Quantity Surveyor on Your Next Scaffold Without Putting One on Your Payroll.
Send us the enquiry you have not had time to start, the site where the hire has been running for months, 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.