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Daywork Sheet Template (UK Construction) — Excel and Word

Free daywork sheet template in Excel and Word. Labour, plant and materials with signed-on-site boxes, plus how dayworks are priced, signed and carried into a payment application.

Overview

Dayworks record work that cannot sensibly be measured and valued at the contract rates — an unexpected obstruction, a client-directed change with no comparable rate, an out-of-sequence job. They are priced on what was actually used: labour hours, plant time, materials, plus whatever percentage additions the contract allows. The paperwork is trivial. Getting it signed on site, on the day, is the part that decides whether you are paid. This page explains how dayworks work and gives you free Excel and Word templates.

2 free templates — download below

Key Takeaways

  • Get the sheet signed on site, on the day. Everything else is recoverable; a missing signature usually is not.
  • No instruction means no entitlement, whatever the sheet says.
  • Show hours, rates and plant time — a total on its own will be challenged.
  • Print the qualification about what the signature confirms, so nobody argues about it later.
  • Submit signed sheets with the next application; a signed sheet in a folder is unclaimed money.

Dayworks captured on site, not on a clipboard

Site Samurai records dayworks on site from a phone, with the instruction reference, the labour, plant and materials used, photographs and the site signature captured at the time. The priced sheet is carried into the next payment application with its evidence attached, so nothing sits signed-but-unclaimed in a folder and nobody is chasing a signature a fortnight after the work.

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When daywork applies

Daywork is a valuation method, not a licence to work off-contract. It applies where the contract says it applies, typically to work that cannot be properly measured against contract rates. It does not turn work carried out without an instruction into paid work: the instruction is what creates the entitlement, and the daywork sheet only prices it.

  • The work must be instructed. No instruction usually means no route to payment.
  • It must be work that genuinely cannot be measured and valued at contract rates.
  • The record must be made on the day, not reconstructed from memory.
  • Percentage additions for overhead and profit are contractual, and vary — read your own contract.

What a daywork sheet must show

A sheet that shows a total and a signature is worth very little. A sheet that shows resources, hours and rates, with the instruction reference on it, is difficult to argue with.

  1. Sheet number, project, date of the works and the location on site.
  2. The instruction reference and the name of the person who instructed the work.
  3. A description of the work, and why it could not be measured at contract rates.
  4. Labour: name, trade or grade, start and finish times, hours, rate and total.
  5. Plant: item, whether owned or hired, hours or days, rate and total.
  6. Materials: item, supplier, delivery or invoice reference, quantity, rate and total.
  7. Percentage additions shown as a separate line, not buried in the rates.
  8. A site signature, with the name, company and date printed alongside it.

Download Templates

Daywork Sheet Template (Excel)

Separate labour, plant and materials sheets with hours, rates and automatic totals, plus a sheet register tracking which signed sheets have been submitted and agreed.

ExcelCommercial

Daywork Sheet (Word, blank)

A one-page blank daywork sheet to print and sign on site, with labour, plant and materials tables, an instruction reference and a signature block carrying the qualification about what the signature confirms.

WordCommercial

Signed on site, priced into the application, on one record

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What the site signature actually means

A signature from the person supervising the work normally confirms the resources and the hours — that these people and this plant were on this job for this long. It is not usually an agreement that the work is a daywork, nor that the rates or the total are accepted. Saying so on the face of the sheet protects both sides: the signer is more willing to sign, and you avoid an argument later about what the signature was for.

  • Print the qualification on the sheet, above the signature box.
  • Get the signer’s name and company as well as the signature — an illegible squiggle proves nothing.
  • Take a photograph of the signed sheet before it leaves site.
  • Chase an unsigned sheet the same week. After a month, nobody remembers.

Worked example

A groundworks gang hits an unmapped concrete obstruction on 15/09/2026 and is instructed verbally to break it out, confirmed by email the same afternoon under instruction reference SI-27. The sheet records two operatives at 6.5 hours each at £28.50 per hour (£370.50), a breaker attachment for 6.5 hours at £14.00 (£91.00) and no materials, giving £461.50 before percentage additions. The site engineer signs it at 16:40 the same day, printing their name and company. The sheet goes into the application valued at 25/09/2026 with the reference SI-27 and daywork sheet 41 attached. Because it is signed, dated and instructed, there is no realistic basis for a pay less notice against it.

Common mistakes

Dayworks are refused for the same handful of reasons on every job.

  • Getting the sheet signed a fortnight later, when the supervisor cannot verify it and will not sign.
  • No instruction reference, so there is no entitlement to price in the first place.
  • A total with no breakdown of hours, rates and plant time.
  • Percentage additions buried inside the labour rate, so the payer cannot check either figure.
  • Charging travelling and standing time the contract does not allow.
  • Signed sheets that are never submitted with an application, so the money is simply never claimed.

How dayworks reach the money

A signed daywork sheet is evidence, not payment. It becomes money when it is priced, carried into an application as its own line with the sheet reference attached, and survives the payment notice. Keep the sheet register — signed, submitted, agreed — so it is obvious which sheets are sitting in a folder rather than in a valuation.

  • Instruction → work → signed sheet → priced → application line → notified sum → paid.
  • Keep dayworks on their own line so a dispute about them does not stall measured work.
  • At final account, the signed sheets are the evidence for every daywork line in the account.

Sources

The payment mechanics on this page were checked against the sources named below before publication. Daywork rates, percentage additions and what counts as daywork are contractual — this is general information, not legal advice.

  • Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, Part II, ss.109–111 (as amended by the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009) — legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/53/part/II
  • JCT, "JCT explains: interim payments" (SBC/Q 2016 clauses 4.9 and 4.11) — corporate.jctltd.co.uk/jct-explains-interim-payments/

Last reviewed: 2 September 2026

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Signed on site, priced into the application, on one record

Site Samurai captures dayworks on site with the instruction reference and the signature, and carries the priced sheet into the next application.

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Daywork Sheet Template FAQ

It is a record of the labour, plant and materials actually used on a piece of instructed work that cannot sensibly be measured and valued at the contract rates. It is priced on resources used rather than on quantities built, and it is normally signed on site by the person supervising the work.
Usually not. A site signature normally confirms only the resources and the hours recorded — that those people and that plant were on the job for that long. It is not an agreement that the work qualifies as daywork, nor that the rates or total are accepted, unless the sheet says so. Print that qualification on the sheet so the point is never in dispute.
Record the refusal in writing the same day, with the name of the person who refused and the reason given, and send them the sheet anyway. An unsigned sheet supported by a same-day email, site diary entries, photographs and allocation sheets is far stronger than an unsigned sheet produced weeks later with no contemporaneous record at all.
Only where your contract provides for it, and only at the percentages it states. These additions vary between contracts and between labour, plant and materials. Show them as a separate line so the payer can check both the resource cost and the addition, rather than folding them into an inflated hourly rate.
As their own line, with the signed sheet and the instruction reference attached, in the cycle after the work was done. Dayworks have no separate payment route: once in the application they form part of the sum claimed, become part of the notified sum unless a compliant payment notice says otherwise, and are payable by the final date for payment.

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Capture dayworks on site with their instruction and signature, and carry them straight into the next payment application.

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