Bill of quantities (UK): what it is, how it's laid out and how to price one

A tender lands with a thick document full of item numbers, quantities and empty price boxes. That's the bill of quantities, and the price you write in it is the price you'll be held to.

A bill of quantities is a list of every item of work on a job. Each line has a short description and a quantity. Your job is to put a rate against each line, multiply it out and add it all up.

In short

• A bill of quantities (BoQ, or BQ) lists every item of work with a description, a quantity and a unit.
• On a traditional job, the client's quantity surveyor writes it. You price it.
• Each line gets a rate. Rate times quantity gives the amount for that line.
• The totals go to a summary, and the summary total becomes your tender price.
• In the UK, the standard rules for setting out a bill are NRM 2, from RICS (the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors).

What is a bill of quantities?

A bill of quantities is a list of the items that make up a building, with a description and a quantity for each one. That's close to how NRM 2, the UK rulebook for detailed measurement, defines it.

"Facing brickwork, half brick thick, 40 square metres" is one line. "Steel lintel, 3 of them" is another.

The client's side measures the job once. Every firm pricing it then prices the same list. Once the contract is signed, the bill becomes a contract document.

What is a bill of quantities used for?

A bill of quantities is used to get tender prices, and then to value the work once the job starts. NRM 2 gives it two main jobs.

1. Pricing the tender. Every contractor gets the same list, so they can price quickly and accurately.
2. Valuing the work later. Your rates are used to work out interim payments (what you're owed for work done so far). They also value variations (changes to the agreed work).

That second job is why your rates matter long after you win. If you price a line too low, every extra metre of it on a variation gets paid at that low rate too.

NRM 2 also lists the benefits. It saves several contractors measuring the same drawings, and it gives everyone a consistent basis to price on.

Who prepares the bill of quantities?

On a traditional lump sum job, the client's quantity surveyor (QS, the person who measures and values building work) prepares the bill of quantities. On a design and build job, it's usually the main contractor or the subcontractors who do the measuring.

That's the split NRM 2 sets out. It depends on the contract route the client chooses.

As a subbie, you'll often get a bill from the main contractor covering just your package. Or you'll get drawings and a spec with no quantities at all. Then you do the takeoff (measuring the quantities off the drawings) yourself.

If you're weighing up paying someone to do that measuring, our guide on whether you still need a QS goes through it.

What does a bill of quantities look like?

A bill of quantities is a set of priced pages, each with columns for the item, description, quantity, unit, rate and amount. The pages sit inside a bigger document with a set running order.

NRM 2 says a bill usually has these sections:

Some bills also have contractor-designed works, credits for materials you can keep from a strip-out, and annexes.

A bill page you can copy

Here's the layout of a typical measured works page. Copy it into a spreadsheet and you have a working template.

Bill No. [number]: [element or work section, for example Masonry]
Page [number]

| Item | Description | Qty | Unit | Rate | Amount |
[A] [What the work is, the material, size and where it goes] [quantity] [m2, m, nr or item] £[rate] £[amount]

Carried forward to the next page: £[page total]

What units does a bill use?

The units come from the measuring rules, and NRM 2 says every line should show its unit. The usual ones are:

• m3 (cubic metres) for things like digging and concrete;
• m2 (square metres) for walls, floors and ceilings;
• m (metres) for runs like skirting, pipe or damp proof course;
• nr (number) for things you count, like doors, lintels or sockets;
• item for one-off things priced as a whole.

Steel bar reinforcement and structural steelwork are the exception: they're billed in tonnes, to two decimal places.

Within each section, NRM 2 puts the lines in that order: cubic first, then square, linear, numbered and itemised.

What are the different types of bill of quantities?

There are two kinds of bill by how firm the quantities are, and three common ways to set one out. Here's how they compare.

By how firm the quantities are:

• A firm bill is for a fully designed job. You price it for a lump sum.
• An approximate bill is used when the design isn't finished. The work is measured again once it's built, so the final price moves.

By how the bill is set out:

As a subbie, a work section or work package bill is the easiest to price. Your trade's lines are all in one place.

How do you price a bill of quantities?

You price a bill of quantities by working out a rate for each line, multiplying it by the quantity, and adding the lines up. Then you carry each page total to the summary and on to the form of tender.

Here's the order to do it in:

1. Read the preliminaries first. They tell you the site rules, working hours, access and what the client wants. All of it costs money.
2. Check the quantities. Measure the big-money lines yourself off the drawings. If a quantity looks wrong, ask before the deadline.
3. Build up each rate. Labour, materials, plant and waste for one unit of the item. Use your own figures, not someone else's price book.
4. Price the preliminaries. NRM 2 tells the QS to ask for a breakdown of your prelims price. Be ready to show how you got to it.
5. Leave provisional sums alone. The QS sets those figures. You only price your overheads and profit on them where the bill asks.
6. Add overheads and profit. NRM 2 asks the bill to give you a place to add your percentage. If yours doesn't, it has to go in your rates.
7. Total it up and check. Each page carried forward, each bill to the summary, the summary to the form of tender.

A worked example: pricing a brickwork bill page

This is a worked example with made-up rates. Use your own labour and merchant prices.

Say a main contractor sends you the masonry bill for a single-storey extension. You build up a rate for each line, then multiply it out.

Item A's rate is 95 pounds a square metre. That could be 55 pounds of labour, 34 pounds of bricks and mortar, and 6 pounds for plant and waste.

Then add your overheads and profit. At 10 per cent on 6,783 pounds, that's 678.30 pounds, so this bill comes to 7,461.30 pounds.

Keep the build-up for every rate. When a variation comes in mid-job, you'll need to show how you got your rate.

What do provisional sums, PC sums and dayworks mean?

These are the lines you don't price in the normal way. Each one works differently.

• Provisional sum: money the QS puts in for work that isn't designed yet. If it's defined, you're expected to allow for it in your programme and prelims. If it's undefined, you're not.
• PC sum (prime cost sum): an allowance inside a rate for buying materials whose exact spec isn't known yet, like tiles or ironmongery. It's supply only. Your fixing, sundries and profit go on top.
• Dayworks: work paid by the hour plus materials and plant, instead of a fixed price. The bill asks for your rates and percentage additions, so price them properly. Extra work can end up paid this way.

Our guide to variations in construction covers what happens when the work changes.

What should you check before you send a priced bill back?

Check every line has a rate, every sum is right, and the total on the form of tender matches the summary. A simple error in the maths can lose you the job or lock you into a bad price.

If the bill is part of a public tender, the written answers matter too. Our guide to bid writing in construction covers that side.

Where Nexley fits

Nexley is AI software for UK tradespeople and small construction firms that prices tenders and measures take-offs. It also writes quotes and runs the back office through WhatsApp, linked to Xero, QuickBooks and Sage.

When there's no bill, or you want to check one, Nexley does the measuring. You send it the PDF drawings and ask for the measure, typed or as a voice note from the van.

Nexley itemises every line against the drawing it came from. It builds a bill of quantities to NRM 2, with your own rates against each item.

It flags provisional sums where the drawings leave gaps. The checking stays with you. See how the takeoff software that builds your bill of quantities works, or try it free for 7 days.

Common questions

What's the difference between a bill of quantities and a bill of materials?

A bill of quantities lists items of work, and a bill of materials lists the things you need to buy. A BoQ line like "facing brickwork, 40 m2" covers the labour, materials and plant to build it.

A bill of materials just lists the bricks, mortar and ties. You'd make one from the BoQ to order from the merchant.

Is a bill of quantities the same as a schedule of works?

Not usually. A schedule of works describes the work, often without quantities. A bill of quantities always gives you the measured quantities to price.

NRM 2 talks about both quantified and unquantified schedules of works, so check which you've got. If yours has no quantities, the takeoff is your risk.

Is a bill of quantities a quote?

No. A bill of quantities is the client's list of the work, and your priced bill is your tender. A quote is usually your own document, in your own words, for a smaller job.

Once accepted, a priced bill becomes part of the contract, and NRM 2 calls the bill a legal document. So a mistake in it can stick. Our guide to construction estimating software covers tools for both.

Can I get a bill of quantities template in Excel?

Yes. Any spreadsheet will do: use the columns in the bill page layout above. Put item, description, quantity, unit, rate and amount in separate columns, with a formula for rate times quantity.

Add a page total at the bottom of each sheet and a summary sheet that pulls them together.

Sources

This page is general guidance on how bills of quantities are set out and priced, not legal or professional advice. Every bill sets its own rules in its preliminaries, so read those first.

• RICS: NRM 2, Detailed measurement for building works (2nd edition, October 2021) (rics.org)
• RICS: New rules of measurement (NRM) product page, current editions (rics.org)