How-to Guide

How to Quote and Run a Commercial Brickwork and Masonry Contract

Intermediate11 min readZigaflow16 July 2026

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What you will learn

How to take off quantities and price a commercial brickwork package from drawings, accounting for different output rates by bond type.
How labour, material, and preliminary costs build up - and why material costs can move 5 to 15% in a single quarter.
How to structure a subcontract that clearly defines scope, programme, retention, CIS obligations, and variation procedures.
How to manage material supply and site records to protect your programme and support any extension of time claim.
How to identify, price, and agree variation instructions before carrying out the work.
How to prepare a final account that captures the full value of the contract including all agreed variations.

A step-by-step guide for brickwork subcontractors and masonry contractors covering quantity take-off, labour and material pricing, subcontract terms, on-site programme management, variation control, and final account preparation on commercial projects.

Commercial brickwork is one of the most quantity-driven sub-packages in construction. Whether you run a specialist bricklaying gang, operate as a labour-and-material subcontractor, or manage brickwork trades as a main contractor, the margin on a masonry contract lives or dies on the accuracy of your take-off, the discipline of your gang rates, and how quickly you capture variations before they become disputes. This guide walks through the full process - from reading a set of drawings and pricing the package to running the contract on site and closing out the final account.

Understanding the Scope Before You Price

Commercial brickwork contracts arrive in several forms. You may be quoting against a bill of quantities (BOQ) drawn up by a quantity surveyor, or tendering against a set of drawings and a specification with the expectation that you measure your own quantities. In either case, your starting point is a full reading of the contract documents.

Review the architectural and structural drawings to understand the building envelope. Note the external wall construction - facing brick outer leaf, blockwork inner leaf, cavity width, and insulation specification. Identify areas of facing brickwork that require decorative bonds such as Flemish bond or English bond, which take significantly longer than standard stretcher bond. A skilled bricklayer lays 400 to 600 standard bricks per day under normal site conditions; decorative bonding reduces that output to 250 to 350 bricks per day. Pricing the same m² rate across the whole package without accounting for this difference is a straightforward route to a loss.

Check the specification for mortar designation. Natural hydraulite or hydraulic lime mortars are slower to work with than standard cement mortar, add to materials cost, and often require specially trained operatives. Heritage or conservation work commands a premium and should be priced separately. Confirm the brick type specified - facing brick selections vary from standard stock bricks costing £500 to £900 per thousand to premium or handmade bricks that exceed £1,500 per thousand.

Also identify scope boundaries. Confirm whether the brickwork package includes or excludes: lintels and beam filling, DPC and cavity tray installation, cavity insulation (either friction-fit or mechanically fixed), wall ties, and external movement joints. Exclusions left undefined create disputes once work has started.

Undefined Scope Boundaries

If the contract documents do not explicitly confirm who supplies and fixes lintels, cavity trays, or movement joints, clarify in writing before you submit your price. Ambiguous scope consistently resolves against the party who failed to raise the query before contract award.

Pricing the Work - Labour, Materials, and Preliminaries

Accurate pricing breaks into three components: direct material cost, direct labour cost, and job-level preliminaries.

Materials: Measure net quantities from drawings, apply a 5% waste factor for standard brickwork, and price at current merchant rates. Do not use rates from a previous quote or a price book more than a few weeks old - material costs in masonry can move by 5 to 15% in a single quarter as brick production, transport, and import costs shift. Calculate separately for: facing bricks, dense concrete blocks, mortar materials (cement and sand, or pre-bagged mortar for smaller packages), DPC, wall ties, cavity trays, and insulation. If you are supplying lintels, price by size and span and check current ex-stock availability.

Labour: UK bricklayer day rates in 2026 range from £180 to £300 per day for a self-employed operative, rising to £250 to £400 per day when the bricklayer works with a dedicated labourer. In London and the South East, expect rates at or above the top of those ranges. For commercial work requiring CSCS Gold Card operatives (NVQ Level 3), factor in a premium over standard site rates. Build your labour cost from measured output rather than from m² rates alone. Estimate the quantity of brickwork in each output category - standard stretcher bond cavity wall, decorative facing work, blockwork inner leaf, below-DPC engineering brickwork - and apply appropriate output rates. Allow for setting-up time on a new floor level, for working around openings, and for additional handling time where access is restricted.

Preliminaries: These are the costs attached to the package as a whole rather than to any single work item. Include scaffolding erection and strikes if you are responsible for scaffold, small plant (mixers, dumpers if needed), waste disposal, any welfare provision within your sub-contract scope, and your supervision or gang foreman time. On most commercial sub-contracts, preliminaries represent 8 to 15% of the direct cost. Under-pricing prelims is one of the most common errors on brickwork packages, particularly where scaffold planning assumptions turn out to be wrong on site.

Apply your margin last. A healthy margin on a commercial sub-contract - accounting for risk, overhead recovery, and profit - typically runs between 15 and 25% on residential and light commercial work. On competitive commercial tenders, the margin is tighter, and your accuracy on the underlying cost becomes more important.

Subcontract Terms and Programme

Before you start work on site, the contract must be agreed in writing. On most commercial projects, you will be issued a subcontract by the main contractor. Common forms include the JCT Subcontract (SBC/SC or DBSC) or a bespoke main-contractor subcontract. Read the key clauses before signing.

The subcontract should confirm: the scope of works by reference to specific drawings and specification clauses, the contract sum broken down by work package if possible, payment terms and the schedule for interim payments, the retention amount (typically 3 to 5%), CIS deduction rate, the programme showing when your package starts and when it must be complete, and the liquidated damages applicable to your sub-contract if you delay the main contractor.

Pay particular attention to the programme. Commercial brickwork is on the critical path of most structural frame and envelope contracts. A delay in getting your gangs on site - caused by brick delivery issues, late access, or preceding trades not completing - will be noticed quickly. Confirm in writing the dates on which you expect access to each floor or elevation, and flag programme risk early rather than absorbing the consequences later.

CIS deductions are a consistent administration requirement. If you are a subcontractor paid under the Construction Industry Scheme, confirm with your main contractor whether you are registered for gross payment or whether the standard 20% deduction applies. Keep records of all CIS statements issued - they are required for your tax return and for reconciling payments against invoiced amounts.

Retention

Most commercial subcontracts hold 3 to 5% of each interim payment as retention, releasing half at practical completion and the remainder at the end of the defects liability period, typically 6 to 12 months later. On a £200,000 package, that is £6,000 to £10,000 held after handover. Track retention owed per contract and chase it when defects periods expire.

Managing the Contract on Site

Once on site, your focus shifts to keeping the gang productive and the paperwork current. Three areas demand consistent attention: material supply, programme tracking, and daily records.

Material delivery timing is the most common cause of bricklaying gang downtime. A gang of four bricklayers and two labourers laying 2,000 bricks per day will exhaust a standard merchant delivery of 500 bricks per pack in a matter of hours. Set a weekly material order schedule tied to programme progress and confirm delivery slots with your merchant at the start of each week, not on the day you need the materials. Check brick batches on arrival - colour and texture can vary between kiln firings, and mismatched facing brick discovered after two floors have been built is an expensive problem.

Track programme progress against the original schedule at least weekly. Record which elevations or floor levels have been completed, note any delays and their causes, and confirm these by email or site instruction. If the main contractor changes the sequence or delays your access, make sure the instruction is documented and confirm the impact on your programme in writing. Programme slippage caused by others - late drawings, access not available as planned, preceding trades overrunning - forms the basis of an extension of time and loss and expense claim. Those claims are much easier to win with contemporaneous records than with retrospective accounts.

Maintain a site diary covering daily attendance, weather conditions, bricks laid, any instructions received verbally or by drawing issue, and any matters affecting progress or cost. The site diary is your primary evidence in any dispute about what happened on site and when.

Daily Output Records

Record bricks laid per gang per day alongside any site conditions that affected output. If your output drops 30% because you were asked to pause while another trade worked in the same area, that record supports both your programme claim and any productivity loss argument.

Variations and Scope Changes

Commercial brickwork generates variation instructions more frequently than many subcontractors expect. Drawing revisions mid-contract are common - window sizes change, reveals are altered, brick corbels are added, or the architect specifies an additional decorative feature. Each change has a cost implication, and each implication needs to be priced and agreed before the work is carried out.

When a variation instruction arrives - by formal architect's instruction, by revised drawing issue, or by verbal instruction from the main contractor's site manager - follow a consistent process. Record the instruction in writing immediately, estimate the additional or omitted work in m² and in days, and submit a cost assessment to the main contractor before your gang touches the revised scope. If you carry out the work first and price it afterwards, your negotiating position weakens considerably.

Price variations using the same rate build as the original tender where the nature of the work is similar. For genuinely new work types - stonework added after contract award, specialist pointing not in the original spec - price fresh from measured quantities and current labour and material rates, and present a detailed breakdown with your submission.

Omissions also require attention. If the main contractor instructs you to stand down from a section of work, confirm the instruction in writing and record any unrecoverable costs: materials ordered and delivered, scaffold already erected, programme disruption to other sections. Omitted work reduces your contract sum but should not reduce your margin to the point where preliminary costs become unrecoverable.

Stage Payments and Final Account

Most brickwork subcontracts are paid monthly against an application for payment. Submit your application on the date stated in the subcontract - typically the last working day of each month - and include a clear breakdown of work completed to date, measured in m² or by floor level, against the contract rate breakdown.

Support your application with a site progress photograph or a marked-up floor plan showing which sections are complete. A well-presented application with evidence behind it is processed faster and challenged less frequently than a single-line submission. Under the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act, your main contractor is required to issue a payment notice or pay-less notice within set periods. If neither arrives, you may have the right to suspend work. Know your contractual timeline and act on it.

The final account closes out the contract sum, incorporating all agreed variation instructions, any loss and expense settled during the contract, and the return of the second half of retention. Prepare your final account from the same records you have maintained throughout the contract: your original tender breakdown, all variation assessments submitted and agreed, and any items agreed informally on site but not yet formalized.

Present the final account clearly, showing the original contract sum, each agreed addition or omission by instruction reference and value, and the resulting final sum. Give the main contractor a reasonable period to respond - typically 21 to 28 days - and follow up in writing if you do not receive a response. Final accounts that drift without formal agreement tend to settle at less than their true value.

Integrated Records

Running your quotes, purchase orders, delivery records, and invoices through one system makes it straightforward to pull the paperwork together at final account stage. Each variation you priced is already in the system with its cost breakdown; each material delivery is matched to the relevant purchase order. That audit trail shortens final account negotiations considerably.

A commercial brickwork contract, managed with the same discipline as the brickwork itself, closes at or above budget. The three habits that protect margin most reliably are: measuring accurately before you price, recording everything as it happens on site, and pricing every variation before the work is done rather than after.

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