How to Price Your First Electrical Tender: A UK Estimator's Step-by-Step Guide

Triage the documents

Before you price anything, read everything.

Tender packs land in a confused state. Drawings, specifications, BOQ skeletons, employer requirements, the main contractor's pre-construction information, programme constraints, qualifications, addendums. The first job is to know what you're working with.

What to look for in your first read:

• Submission date and time. Diary it. Set an internal deadline 48 hours earlier.
• Form of contract. JCT, NEC, bespoke? This matters for risk allocation.
• Drawings list and revision status. Are the drawings current?
• The works description. What's included, what isn't.
• Subcontract packages identified. What's expected to be subbed out.
• Risk clauses. Anything that shifts risk onto you (more on this in Step 8).

Allocate one hour for this. If the tender pack is heavy, two. Resist the urge to start pricing in this step.

Mark up the drawings (the take-off)

This is where the real work starts. You're translating drawings into a measured schedule of every electrical component on the job: socket outlets, light fittings, switches, distribution boards, cable runs, containment, fire alarm devices.

Most UK estimators use Bluebeam Revu for take-offs. You set up a marker for each component type, click through the drawings counting and measuring, and Bluebeam tallies it up for you.

Two tips for your first one:

• Use coloured markers. Lights in yellow, sockets in blue, data points in red, fire alarm in pink. You'll spot mistakes faster.
• Audit-trail every page. When you've counted a drawing, stamp it "counted" with the date. You'd be amazed how easy it is to count the same drawing twice.

Allocate 30–50% of your total tender time to the take-off. It's the foundation everything else sits on.

Build the bill of quantities (BOQ)

The BOQ converts the take-off into priced lines. Materials × quantity × rate = total. Labour hours × labour rate = total. Plant and prelims similar.

For your first one, structure your BOQ in sections that match the way the work will be installed:

1. First-fix containment
2. First-fix wiring
3. Second-fix lighting
4. Second-fix small power
5. Distribution and circuit protection
6. Fire alarm and life safety
7. Data and communications
8. Specialist systems (BMS, access control, etc.)
9. Testing and commissioning
10. Preliminaries

Each section has materials and labour priced separately. Mark-up is applied at the end (Step 9), not line by line.

Send subcontractor enquiries

Anything you're not self-delivering, you need a price from a sub. Typical sub-packages on a commercial electrical tender:

• Fire alarm install and certification
• Data cabling certification
• BMS / controls commissioning
• Specialist systems (CCTV, access)
• Test and inspection (if a third party)

Email each sub at the same time, with the same scope, the same drawings, the same date for a returned quote. Set the deadline 48 hours before your submission so you have time to query, compare, and integrate.

Two non-negotiables: never use a placeholder rate "to fill the slot", and never submit with only one sub quote on a critical package. Two quotes minimum on anything over £20k.

Send material enquiries

Same principle for material-heavy items. Distribution boards, switchgear, specialist luminaires, cable in volume.

Email your preferred merchants with the take-off quantities. Compare prices. Use the lowest credible price — credibility matters because the cheapest quote sometimes can't deliver on the programme.

For your first tender, expect to spend 30–60 minutes chasing material quotes. After ten tenders, you'll have a small group of trusted merchants who quote back inside 24 hours.

Apply labour

This is where most first-time estimators go wrong, and where experience compounds.

You're estimating how many hours each section will take to install. The temptation is to estimate by gut. Don't. Use published rates from CIJC (Construction Industry Joint Council) and SELECT (in Scotland), adjusted for your firm's known productivity.

Two methods:

• Hours per item. Each second-fix socket: 0.4 hours including testing. Each light point: 0.6 hours. Etc.
• Hours per section. Total labour for second-fix lighting on a 24-unit housing scheme: 320 hours.

Hours per item is more granular and easier to defend in a value-engineering session. Hours per section is faster.

Multiply by your labour day rate (typical UK 2026: £280–£340/day depending on region and JIB grade). Add appropriate non-productive overhead.

Add plant, prelims, and overheads

Plant: scaffolding, MEWPs, hire of test gear if not in stock. Itemise it.

Preliminaries: see the margin leaks article — itemise rather than apply a percentage. Site supervisor time, parking, welfare contribution, programme contingency.

Overheads: your firm's overhead recovery percentage applied to direct cost. If you don't know it, calculate it: total annual overhead ÷ total annual direct cost. Most UK electrical contractors run 12–18%.

Draft qualifications

This is the most often-skipped step on first tenders, and the one that protects you the most.

A qualification is a clause you add to your tender that limits the risk you're taking on. Examples:

• "Our price assumes uninterrupted access between [date] and [date]."
• "Variations to the design after acceptance to be priced and agreed before instruction."
• "Pay-when-paid clauses in the main contract are excluded from our agreement."
• "Programme penalties are excluded; our price assumes [duration] from acceptance."

Build a standing qualifications library so you're not rewriting them every tender. The Commercial Templates pack includes a 30-clause library tested on hundreds of submissions — a quick way to skip the learning curve here.

Apply mark-up and submit

Finally, mark-up. This is your profit and your risk premium combined.

For your first tender, apply mark-up consistently across the whole submission. Don't mark up materials at 12% and labour at 18% — pick one rate and apply it across direct costs.

Typical mark-up ranges in 2026 UK electrical contracting:

• Domestic / residential: 12–18%
• Commercial fit-out: 14–20%
• Industrial / specialist: 16–25%
• Healthcare / education / public sector: 14–18% (often heavily competed)

Submit by your internal deadline (48 hours before the actual deadline). Use the buffer to re-check the maths and the qualifications.