Ratebook 2026 — UK Builder's Estimating Spreadsheet

Every estimating template you have downloaded was built for somebody else.

Search for a construction estimating spreadsheet and you will find hundreds of them. Almost all are American. Dollars. Square feet. No VAT. No CIS. No idea that a job in Central London costs a third more than the same job in Liverpool. You spend an evening rebuilding the thing before you can price a single job with it.

Ratebook is built in the UK, for UK builders, by a working contractor.

What it actually does

You fill in the job. It builds the price. Then it checks its own answer.

That last part is the bit nobody else does. Ratebook prices your job bottom-up from measured quantities, then compares the result against published £/m² data for that project type, that specification, that region and that job size — and tells you plainly whether you are in range, high, or low. If your number is wrong, you find out before the client does.

What is inside

Nine sheets. 622 live formulas. No macros, no add-ins, no subscription.

• Start Here — how to drive it, in plain English, in about four minutes.
• Job Setup — one screen. Project type, floor area, specification tier, region, rate basis, labour uplift, overheads, profit, contingency, VAT treatment. Change the region and all 176 rates reprice instantly.
• Rate Library — 176 UK rates for Q3 2026, excluding VAT: subcontract measured rates, trade day rates, materials and plant. Low / average / high for every line. Every figure is overtypable, so it becomes your rate library after the first job.
• Estimator — 14 sections from preliminaries to provisional sums. Pick a rate from the dropdown or type your own price. Your override always wins.
• Summary — cost by section, then the full build-up: measured cost, prelims, overheads, profit, contingency, VAT, final price. Plus gross margin, mark-up and £/m² priced.
• VAT & CIS — the four VAT treatments with HMRC's actual conditions, and a CIS deduction calculator that correctly strips materials, plant and fuel before applying 0%, 20% or 30%.
• Benchmark Check — published £/m² bands for 14 project types across three specification tiers, 27 regional multipliers, and a live verdict on your number.
• Scope & Exclusions — 9 inclusions and 18 exclusions written as finished clauses you can paste straight into a quotation. Asbestos. Party wall. Planning fees. Unforeseen ground conditions. This sheet alone pays for the file the first time it saves you a variation argument.
• Sources — every rate source and every piece of HMRC guidance, with links, so you can check the working yourself.

The labour uplift nobody builds in

Most templates let you enter a day rate and treat it as your cost. It is not. Employer's NI, holiday pay, pension, the CITB levy, PPE and non-productive time all sit on top.

Ratebook applies an all-in uplift — 70% by default, and you can change it — but only to rows tagged as labour. Subcontract measured rates are left alone, because they are already supply and fix. Get this wrong and you quietly work for nothing. Most spreadsheets get it wrong.

VAT and CIS, done properly

Four VAT treatments, each with the actual test written next to it: 20% standard, 5% reduced including the continuous two-year empty-property condition, 0% for new dwellings and qualifying works, and a not-registered option. The zero rate on energy-saving materials in Great Britain is flagged with its 31 March 2027 expiry.

The CIS calculator applies the deduction to the labour element only. Materials, consumables, fuel, plant hire and prefabrication are excluded where the subcontractor paid for them directly. Every rule is referenced to the HMRC guidance it comes from, on the Sources sheet.

Why it costs £29

Spon's Architects' and Builders' Price Book 2026 has 20,000 prices and is the industry standard. It is also £161 to £275, it is a book, and it does not add up your job, work out your VAT, or tell you whether your price is sane. Dedicated estimating software starts around £899 plus VAT per year.

Ratebook does not pretend to replace either. It has 176 rates, not 20,000. What it does is take a jobbing builder from a blank page to a defensible, benchmarked, VAT-correct number in under an hour, for the price of a bag of plaster and a coffee. One payment. No renewal.

Honest about who this is not for

If you run new-build housing schemes, need NRM2-compliant bills of quantities, or already run EstimatorXpress properly, this will not add much. It is built for extensions, renovations, kitchens, bathrooms, loft and garage conversions, full house refurbishments, and school planned and responsive works — jobs between roughly £5,000 and £250,000.

Requirements

Microsoft Excel 2016 or later, Microsoft 365, or LibreOffice Calc. Works on Windows and Mac. Formulas only — no macros, so nothing to enable and nothing your IT policy will block. Google Sheets will open it, but the data-validation dropdowns and the chart are less reliable there, so Excel is recommended.

Licence

Single-business licence. Buy once, use on as many of your own jobs as you like, for as long as you like. You may modify the file, add your own rates, and rebrand it for use inside your own business. You may not resell, redistribute, sub-licence, or publish the file or any derivative of it, and you may not include it in another product or template bundle.

The rates supplied are indicative UK market rates for Q3 2026, gathered from the published sources listed on the Sources sheet. They are a starting point, not a quotation. You remain responsible for verifying every rate and every calculation against your own costs and your own suppliers before pricing work. SJ Developments North West Ltd accepts no liability for commercial loss arising from use of this file. Nothing in it constitutes tax advice — confirm your VAT and CIS position with your accountant or HMRC.

Refunds

Ratebook is a digital file delivered immediately on payment, so it is non-refundable once the download has been issued. By buying, you consent to immediate delivery and acknowledge that this ends the 14-day cancellation right that would otherwise apply to a digital purchase under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, regulation 37.

Every sheet in the workbook is screenshotted on the product page, so you can see exactly what you are buying before you pay. If the file will not open, is missing content, or is not as described, email sj_developments@outlook.com and it will be corrected and reissued free of charge — your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 are unaffected.

What you get, immediately

One .xlsx file, delivered the second you pay. 176 rates. 622 formulas. A worked 20 m² single-storey rear extension already filled in so you can see a finished job the moment you open it. Free updates to the 2026 edition.

Built by SJ Developments North West Ltd — a working construction company in Liverpool. Company number 16371408, verifiable at Companies House. Not a template farm.