What Is Daywork in Construction?
Daywork explained: how it differs from measured work and variations, the RICS definition of prime cost it is priced against, percentage additions, and how a signed daywork sheet reaches your payment application.
Key Takeaways
- Daywork is a valuation method for instructed work that cannot properly be measured — not a way of working off-contract.
- The instruction creates the entitlement; the sheet only prices it.
- UK daywork is normally priced against the RICS and Construction Confederation definition of prime cost, 3rd edition, operative from 2007.
- Show percentage additions on their own line so the payer can check the cost and the addition separately.
- Get the sheet signed on site on the day, then claim it in the next application. A signed sheet in a folder is unclaimed money.
The sheet is only worth what it can prove months later
Site Samurai captures dayworks on site from a phone with the instruction reference, the labour, plant and materials used, photographs and the site signature recorded at the time. The priced sheet is carried into the next payment application with its evidence attached and tracked from raised to agreed, so nothing sits signed but unclaimed in a folder and nobody is chasing a signature a fortnight after the gang left.
The definition
Designing Buildings describes daywork as the means by which a contractor is paid for specifically instructed work on the basis of the cost of labour, materials and plant plus a mark-up for overheads and profit. NRM2 puts it as valuing work on the basis of the time spent by the contractor’s workpeople, the materials used and the plant employed. Two words in those definitions carry the weight. Instructed: without an instruction there is no entitlement for a daywork sheet to price. And cost: daywork is a cost-based valuation, which is exactly why the record of what was consumed has to be contemporaneous.
- Daywork prices instructed work on resources consumed, not on quantities built.
- It applies where the work cannot properly be measured and valued at contract rates.
- It is a fallback valuation method, not an alternative way of running the job.
- The instruction creates the entitlement. The sheet only prices it.
Daywork, measured work and variations
These three terms get used interchangeably on site and they are not the same thing. A variation is a change to the scope of the works. Measurement and daywork are two of the methods by which that change gets valued. Most variations are measured; daywork is what you fall back on when measurement does not work.
| What it is | How the money is arrived at | |
|---|---|---|
| Measured work | Work valued against the quantities in the contract bill or schedule of rates. | Quantity times rate. The rates are agreed before the work starts. |
| Variation | A change to the scope: an addition, a substitution or an omission. | Valued under the contract’s rules, usually by measurement at or derived from contract rates. |
| Daywork | A valuation method for instructed work that cannot properly be measured. | Prime cost of labour, plant and materials, plus contractual percentage additions. |
- A variation can be valued by measurement or by daywork. The two are not opposites.
- Daywork without an instruction is not a variation — it is unpaid work.
- Where a comparable contract rate exists, expect the payer to argue for measurement rather than daywork.
The RICS definition of prime cost
UK daywork is normally priced against the "Definition of Prime Cost of Daywork carried out under a Building Contract", published jointly by RICS and the Construction Confederation. The current version is the 3rd edition, operative from 2007; RICS lists the earlier 2nd edition as archived. The document is what stops "prime cost" being an argument: it sets out how the standard hourly base rate for labour is built up, and which labour costs sit outside that rate and are recovered instead through a percentage addition. Your contract decides whether that definition applies to your job and at what percentages — read the particulars rather than assuming.
- The definition sets out the build-up of the standard hourly base rate for labour.
- Costs outside that rate are recovered through a percentage addition rather than inside the rate.
- Two commercial routes are common: a percentage addition on prime cost, or all-inclusive daywork rates.
- Which route applies, and at what percentages, is a contract question and varies by job.
- JCT SBC/Q 2016 allows variations that cannot be properly measured to be valued on a daywork basis under clause 5.7.
Rates and percentage additions
The commercial argument on dayworks is almost never about whether two operatives were on site. It is about the rate applied to their hours and the percentage added on top. Settle both before the first sheet is raised, and print them on the sheet so nobody is negotiating them retrospectively.
- Agree labour, plant and materials rates at the start of the job, in writing.
- Show percentage additions as their own line, never folded into an inflated hourly rate.
- Additions commonly differ between labour, plant and materials — do not apply one figure to all three.
- Under all-inclusive rates the addition is already inside the rate; do not add it twice.
- Charge travelling, standing and non-productive time only where the contract provides for it.
What the sheet must record, and when it must be signed
The daywork sheet template on this site sets this out as a working document. The discipline it enforces is simple: the sheet is made on the day, on site, by someone who was there, and signed before the supervisor who can verify it goes home.
- Sheet number, project, date of the works and the location on site.
- The instruction reference and the name of the person who gave it.
- What the work was, and why it could not be measured at contract rates.
- Labour by name and grade, with start and finish times, hours, rate and total.
- Plant by item, owned or hired, with hours or days, rate and total.
- Materials by item with supplier, delivery or invoice reference, quantity and rate.
- Percentage additions on their own line.
- A site signature with the signer’s printed name, company and date.
What the signature means
A site signature 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 qualifies as daywork, nor that the rates or the total are accepted. Printing that qualification on the face of the sheet helps both sides. The supervisor signs more readily because they are confirming a fact they witnessed rather than accepting a commercial position, and you avoid a later argument about what the signature was for. Where a signature is refused, record the refusal in writing the same day with the name and the reason given, and send the sheet anyway. A same-day email, site diary entries, photographs and allocation sheets carry real weight; a sheet reconstructed a month later carries very little.
How a daywork sheet becomes money
A signed sheet is evidence, not payment. It becomes money by being priced, carried into the next application for payment as its own line with the sheet and instruction references attached, and surviving the payment notice. Under the Construction Act the sum applied for becomes the notified sum unless a compliant payment notice or pay less notice says otherwise — so a daywork line that is properly evidenced and properly claimed is a line the payer has to actively reduce, not one it can quietly ignore.
- Instruction, work, signed sheet, priced, application line, notified sum, paid.
- Keep dayworks on their own line so a dispute about them does not stall the measured work.
- Keep a sheet register: raised, signed, priced, submitted, agreed.
- At final account the signed sheets are the evidence behind every daywork line in the account.
- A signed sheet sitting in a folder is unclaimed money, not a safety net.
Sources
The definitions and valuation rules on this page were checked against the sources named below before publication. Daywork rates, percentage additions and what counts as daywork are contractual and vary by job and by contract edition. This is general information, not legal advice.
- RICS and the Construction Confederation, "Definition of Prime Cost of Daywork carried out under a Building Contract", 3rd edition (operative from 2007; the 2nd edition is listed as archived) — isurv.com/downloads/download/1377/definition_of_prime_cost_of_daywork
- Construction Confederation, "Dayworks and Prime Cost: Building Industry", briefing dated April 2007, sections 3 and 6 (the standard hourly base rate, and the labour costs recovered by percentage addition) — hbf.co.uk/documents/4582/Dayworks_and_Prime_Cost_Building_Industry_Apr_07.pdf
- isurv, "Valuing variations retrospectively: valuation using dayworks" (JCT Standard Building Contract with Quantities 2016, clause 5.7) — isurv.com/info/1170/valuing_change/5384/valuing_variations_retrospectively/2
- Designing Buildings, "Dayworks in construction" (the percentage-addition and all-inclusive-rate options, and the NRM2 definition) — designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Dayworks_in_construction
- 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
Last reviewed: 2 September 2026
Dayworks captured, priced and claimed on one record
Site Samurai records dayworks on site with their instruction and signature, and carries the priced sheet into the next application.
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