Estimating guide
How to price a dry lining job
Dry lining looks simple on a plan: some walls, some ceilings. The money is in how many separate things there are. Studs, board, taping and jointing, ceilings, bulkheads, curved walls, door openings, patching. Price them as one number and you will miss something. Price them as separate lines and you will not.
The example below is a made-up job with realistic figures, so you can see every step. It is not a price list. Use your own rates and your own hours.
1. Split the job into the pieces the work goes in
Framing, boarding, taping and jointing, ceilings, and the odd items. The example job has all of these as lines of their own, and for each floor. Pricing floor by floor also shows you where the money sits.
2. Measure each piece in its own unit
Walls and ceilings by area. Bulkheads by length. Door openings and pattress plates by count. A line only works if its quantity and its unit match, so a bulkhead is metres, never square metres.
3. Say how long one unit takes
Hours per unit is the number that matters most, and the one nobody can give you. It is yours, from your own crews. In the example, “12.5 mm plasterboard, both sides” allows 0.13 hours per m². A curved wall or a stair core is different work from a flat office wall, so those get their own lines and their own hours.
4. Add the materials, with waste
Materials are the quantity times the price times one plus waste. Board gets cut and some gets broken, so the example uses 10% on board and 5% on studs. Use what your own jobs show.
5. Add the equipment for the heights
Equipment is priced by the hour and charged to the line that uses it, so the cost is in the line it belongs to. The example has “Scissor lift” and “Mobile scaffold tower”. Ceilings and stair cores need a lift or a tower, and that cost belongs there and not lost in preliminaries.
6. Let the packages out, and add your running costs
The example lets out three packages to subcontractors, with up to four quotes each. The lowest is carried unless I pick another, and one package is an allowance because there is no quote yet. Running costs sit apart, and weekly items follow the length of the job, so a longer job costs more. Both lists are under the example.
7. Then contingency, profit and the rest
In this order: contingency on the direct cost, then your overheads and profit on the direct cost plus contingency, then the bond and insurance on that subtotal. The table below shows each step.
The worked example
The job: dry lining and ceilings for a three-storey office, Bristol. It runs 12 weeks. Every figure here is in the example spreadsheet below.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Hours
| 145.6 hours |
Labour
| £4,222.40 |
Materials
| £5,174.40 |
| Line total | £9,396.80 |
Per m²
| £8.39 |
Every line of the estimate is worked out like this one. Then the lines are added up, and the rest of the tender is built on top of them.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Own work
| £218,766.60 |
Subcontractors
| £21,175.00 |
Preliminaries
| £17,165.38 |
Direct cost
| £257,106.98 |
Contingency
| £7,713.21 |
Overheads and profit
| £26,482.02 |
| Subtotal | £291,302.21 |
Bond
| £0.00 |
Insurance
| £1,456.51 |
| Tender total | £292,758.72 |
VAT, shown apart
| £58,551.74 |
The two lists behind the subcontractors and preliminaries lines above:
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Acoustic insulation in partitions | £11,770.00 |
| Fire stopping to penetrations and joints | £6,930.00 |
| Stair core scaffold, allowance | £2,475.00 |
| Total | £21,175.00 |
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Supervision, part-time site supervisor | £8,400.00 |
| Contracts manager, part time | £3,655.38 |
| Small tools, screw guns and stilts | £1,260.00 |
| Board delivery and crane offload | £1,870.00 |
| Skips, exchanged | £1,980.00 |
| Total | £17,165.38 |
Common mistakes
- Ceilings at height with no lift hours. The cost turns up on site, not in the tender.
- Nothing for patching and clean-up. The example has a lump sum for making good after following trades, and a daily clean-up line. Both are real work.
- Options inside the price. The example prices its option (for example a heavier board in the corridors) with the line marked Excluded. You see the figure, and it adds to nothing until the customer asks for it. That left out £853.44 in this example.
- Taping and jointing priced as part of boarding. In the example it is its own line with its own trade and its own hours.
Free estimating spreadsheet
Dry lining estimate spreadsheet for Excel
The worked example on this page, as an Excel workbook you can make your own: type your rates, your lines and your subcontractor quotes, and formulas work out the tender summary and a one-page quotation, to the penny.
Download the example spreadsheet Download a blank spreadsheet
The example has a whole job filled in, ready to change into your own. The blank one starts empty.
Same totals as Bidfident, to the penny. Version 0.1, October 2026.
Filled one in already? Import lines in Bidfident brings in the lines from its Estimate tab.
No sign-up, no email. Free for your own tenders. Check every figure before you send a tender. Please don't resell it. All free estimate spreadsheets for the UK
Starter cost codes: Dry lining and ceilings 36 codes
Bidfident's own starter codes, ready to change into your own. To bring them in, go to Libraries, then Cost codes, then Import from Excel in Bidfident, and pick the file. You see a preview before anything changes. Version 0.1, October 2026.
Free to use for your own tenders. Change it to suit your business. Please don't resell it or hand it out as your own list. All starter cost-code lists for the UK
When your spreadsheet gets heavy
If you end up with lots of tenders, changing rates or more than one person working on them, Bidfident does the same sums on a page and keeps every tender with its saved versions.
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