Quick Answer
Download our free Google Sheets and Excel job estimate template for UK tradespeople. Enter your labour hours, hourly rates, materials, and desired margin. The spreadsheet auto-calculates every total, including profit margin amount and your final quoted price, inclusive and exclusive of VAT. No formulas to write, no setup required. Just fill in the yellow cells and send.
Table of Contents
Download the free template
Most tradespeople quote jobs from memory or on scraps of paper. That works until you underprice a job, forget to add materials, or lose track of what margin you actually made. This template fixes all three problems at once.
Open it in Google Sheets or Excel, fill in the yellow cells, and every total calculates itself. It takes less time than typing out a quote in a text message, and it produces something you can send to a customer that looks professional.
Google Sheets (.xlsx)
Open directly in Google Sheets or save to Google Drive. Share with customers or print to PDF from your browser. Works on any device.
- Instructions sheet included
- Auto-calculated labour and materials
- 25% profit margin preset (adjustable)
- Job Log tab for tracking quotes
- VAT calculation included
Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)
Open in Excel on Windows, Mac, or mobile. All formulas are fully Excel-compatible. Save a copy locally and use it on site without internet access.
- Same file, works in Excel and Google Sheets
- All formulas use standard XLSX format
- Colour-coded input vs. formula cells
- Dropdown status tracker on Job Log
- No macros or add-ins required
How to use the template
Download the .xlsx file and open it in Google Sheets (File → Import) or Excel. Fill in the yellow cells on the "Job Estimate" sheet. The blue cells calculate automatically. Do not edit the blue cells. Print or export to PDF to send to your customer. Use the "Job Log" sheet to track multiple quotes over time.
What's included in the spreadsheet
The template has three sheets: Instructions, Job Estimate, and Job Log. The Job Estimate sheet is where all the quoting happens. It breaks down into five distinct sections, each with a specific purpose.
Your company details
Enter your trading name, address, phone, email, and registration number (Gas Safe, NICEIC, or other). This appears at the top of the estimate and makes it look professional. Update this once and it stays saved in the file.
Job details
Customer name, address, job reference, estimate date, and validity period. The description of work field is a large text box where you can outline the scope clearly, which reduces callbacks about what was and was not included.
Labour section
Ten rows for labour items. For each one, enter a description (e.g. "First-fix electrics"), the number of hours, and your hourly rate in pounds. The total for each line and a Labour Subtotal at the bottom calculate automatically.
Materials section
Ten rows for materials. Enter a description, quantity, and unit price. Totals calculate automatically. If you're buying materials on account and invoicing them back, add your trade uplift to the unit price before entering it.
Summary and pricing
The summary pulls Labour and Materials subtotals together. You then enter your overhead percentage (defaults to 5%) and profit margin (defaults to 25%). The template shows you the overhead amount, profit amount, and two final prices, one excluding VAT and one including 20% VAT if you are registered.
Job Log sheet
A separate sheet for tracking every estimate you send. Date, customer, description, labour total, materials total, quoted price, and a status dropdown (Sent, Won, Lost, Pending, Cancelled). Rows are colour-coded by status so you can see your pipeline at a glance.
How to customise it for your trade
The template is deliberately generic so it works across all trades, but it takes about ten minutes to set it up once and then it works every time without thinking about it.
- Add your company details: Open the Job Estimate sheet and fill in the company details section at the top. Enter your trading name, address, phone, email, and registration number. You only do this once. Save the file as your "master template" and make a copy whenever you start a new estimate.
- Set your standard hourly rate: If you always charge the same hourly rate, type it into the Rate column on the first labour row. Then adjust it per job if you charge different rates for different work types (e.g. emergency call-out vs. standard work).
- Adjust the overhead percentage: The default is 5%. For most sole traders this is roughly right, covering van costs, insurance, tools, and admin time. If you are a larger firm with premises and staff, you might need 10-15%. Use your last year's accounts to work it out properly.
- Set your target profit margin: The default is 25%. This means every pound of cost you incur, you charge £1.25 to the customer. You can change this per estimate, so you can go lower for a regular customer or higher for a complex job.
- Add your standard materials: If you use the same materials repeatedly (cable, fittings, pipe, fixings), you can pre-populate the description column with your standard items. Leave quantity and unit price blank and fill them in per job.
- Use the notes section: Add your standard payment terms to the Notes/Terms field and save them in your master copy. Something like "Payment due within 30 days of invoice. Estimate valid for 30 days. Excludes permit fees and waste disposal unless stated." This alone prevents a lot of disputes.
- Save your master copy: Once you have company details, your standard rates, your overhead and margin set, save the file as "Job Estimate MASTER.xlsx". Never use the master directly, always duplicate it first.
- Export as PDF to send: In Google Sheets, go to File → Download → PDF Document. In Excel, go to File → Export → Create PDF/XPS. Send the PDF to the customer. Keep the .xlsx version for your own records.
Getting your profit margin right
Most tradespeople think of margin and markup as the same thing. They are not, and confusing them is one of the most common ways people end up earning less than they think.
Markup is what you add on top of your costs. A 25% markup on £100 of costs gives you a price of £125. Profit margin is what percentage of your final price is profit. On that £125 price, your profit of £25 is 20% of £125. So a 25% markup only gives you a 20% margin.
The template uses margin, not markup. When you enter 25% in the Profit Margin cell, you get a price where 25% of the total is profit. This is the more accurate way to think about it, because your profit is a percentage of what you charge, not a percentage of your costs.
What margin should you target?
For sole traders and small firms, these are rough benchmarks based on what profitable UK tradespeople typically target:
If you are doing emergency call-outs, specialist work, or jobs with a lot of risk, charging 35-45% margin is reasonable. If you are competing on price for straightforward domestic work, 20-25% is more common. The key is to know your number and stick to it rather than guessing differently on each job.
AI tip: use ChatGPT to check your pricing
Once you have a completed estimate, paste it into ChatGPT or Claude and ask: "I'm a UK electrician. Does this estimate look like it covers all the typical costs for this type of job? Am I missing anything?" The AI will often flag things you have forgotten, like call-out charges, waste disposal, or return visits for second-fix work. It is not a substitute for your own experience, but it is a useful sense-check before you send the quote.
Common quoting mistakes to avoid
These are the mistakes that consistently eat into profit margins for UK tradespeople. The template helps with all of them, but you need to be deliberate about entering the right numbers.
Not recovering your overhead costs
Your van, your tools, your insurance, your phone, your accountant, your PPE. None of these are free but most tradespeople forget to build them into quotes. The 5% overhead line in the template exists specifically for this. If your annual overheads are £8,000 and you do 40 jobs a year, that's £200 per job that needs to come back somehow. The overhead percentage on the template is your mechanism to recover it automatically.
Forgetting non-productive time
Travel time to site, time spent pricing the job, loading and unloading the van, waiting for deliveries, and dealing with problems you did not expect. Most tradespeople only enter the productive hours on the tools. Add at minimum 30 minutes per job for non-productive time, more for jobs that are far away or complex to access. Some trades add a standard call-out charge to cover the first hour of travel and site set-up.
Underpricing materials
Copper pipe, cable, fixings, and sundries all cost money. Material prices in the UK have risen sharply since 2021 and are still volatile. Always check current prices from your merchant rather than using prices from memory. If you are buying on trade account and charging materials back to the customer, apply a reasonable uplift (typically 10-20%) to cover your time sourcing and handling them. The template has ten material rows, use them all if needed.
Sending a quote before verifying the scope
The biggest cause of unprofitable jobs is not underpricing, it is scope creep. A customer says "while you're there, can you just..." and you end up doing three extra hours of work for free. Always confirm what is included and what is not in the Description of Work field before you send. The more specific your scope, the easier it is to say no to extras or issue a change order.
Videos on job estimating
These are some of the most-watched videos on the topic of job estimating and pricing for tradespeople and contractors. Worth watching even if you have been in the game for years.
Estimating with Excel for the Small Contractor
Rich Cargin
743,999 views · 15:01
How to Estimate Construction Projects as a General Contractor
Jesse Lane
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NEVER Break Down A Bid For A Customer: Here's Why
Successful Contractor
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How to Create a Quote Form in Excel for Your Business
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How to Price Construction/Trade Projects for PROFIT
Dean Barton
5,213 views · 6:40
How To Prepare Construction Cost Estimation Format In Excel
Cost Engineering Professional
348,820 views · 13:17
What tradespeople are saying
Job estimating is one of the most-discussed topics across trades forums and social media. Here is what the community has to say about spreadsheet templates and pricing your work properly.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Open the .xlsx file in the Google Sheets mobile app (free on iOS and Android) or the Excel mobile app. The formulas work on both. On a small screen it is easier to use the spreadsheet in landscape mode. You may want to zoom into specific sections rather than trying to see the whole sheet at once.
Insert new rows inside the existing section (right-click on a row number within the labour section and select "Insert row above"). Copy the formula from the Total column of the row above into the new row. Then update the subtotal formula to include the new row in the SUM range. For example, if you add a row so labour now goes from row 24 to row 35, the Labour Subtotal formula should be =SUM(E24:E35).
Generally no. Most trade professionals send a total price with a description of the work scope, not an itemised cost breakdown. Showing your hourly rate and hours invites the customer to argue about how many hours the job should take. Showing your materials cost invites them to say they found it cheaper on Amazon. Send a single total with a clear scope of work. Use the breakdown yourself to verify you have covered everything and hit your target margin.
Markup is added to cost. Margin is a percentage of the selling price. A 25% markup on £1,000 of costs gives a price of £1,250, and the profit of £250 is 20% of that price. The template uses margin. So if you enter 25% in the Profit Margin cell, your profit will be 25% of the final selling price. This is more accurate for understanding your actual profitability because your profit margin percentage shows what percentage of every pound you receive is profit.
Yes, with one adjustment. When you are quoting to a main contractor rather than a homeowner, the VAT row may or may not apply depending on how the contract is structured and whether you are CIS-registered. Check with your accountant if you are unsure about the CIS deduction rules. You can also adjust the profit margin to reflect that you are competing against other subbies rather than quoting direct to a consumer.
You can use the spreadsheet alongside tools like ChatGPT or Claude as a starting point. Describe the job to the AI (type or voice-to-text on your phone), ask it to estimate hours and materials, then paste those numbers into the template and review them. The AI is not always accurate on materials quantities or trade-specific durations, but it is a useful first draft that you correct from experience. Our article on using ChatGPT for quotes goes into this in detail.
Key takeaways
- Download the free template in .xlsx format, it works in both Google Sheets and Excel with no setup required.
- Fill in the yellow cells only. The blue cells contain formulas that calculate labour totals, materials totals, overhead, profit margin, and VAT automatically.
- Set your overhead percentage (default 5%) and profit margin (default 25%) once in the Summary section, then adjust per job as needed.
- Save a master copy with your company details pre-filled and duplicate it for each new estimate. Never use the master directly.
- Do not show customers your cost breakdown. Send a total price with a clear description of scope. Use the breakdown for your own pricing checks.
- Use the Job Log sheet to track estimates by status (Won, Lost, Sent, Pending) and review your win rate over time.
- If you need to AI-assist your quoting, paste job descriptions into ChatGPT or Claude to get a first-draft materials list, then verify it against your own experience before using it.
