You're about to put an advert up for an electrical estimator at £55,000 a year. Before you click publish, sit down for five minutes.
Because that £55k is going to cost you somewhere closer to £74,000 by the time on-costs land — and there's a fair chance the new hire is gone before they've earned the year's salary back.
I've watched too many directors of £1M–£10M electrical contracting firms make this hire too fast, on too thin a financial model, and regret it inside eighteen months. So before we look at outsourcing, let's do the maths properly on what an in-house estimator actually costs in 2026.
What a £55,000 in-house electrical estimator actually costs you
The salary is the headline. It's not the full bill. Here's the real loaded annual cost for a mid-experience estimator in 2026:
| Cost component | Annual figure |
|---|---|
| Gross salary | £55,000 |
| Employer NI (13.8% over £9,100) | £6,335 |
| Pension auto-enrolment (3% min) | £1,650 |
| Holiday cover (28 days at full-pay equivalent) | £4,230 |
| Sick cover (UK industry average) | £1,375 |
| Software (Trimble Accubid, Bluebeam, MS Office) | £1,800 |
| Desk, IT, hardware | £1,200 |
| Recruitment fee (15% of salary, amortised) | £2,750 |
| Total Year 1 loaded cost | ~£74,340 |
That's the cost number. It's not the risk number. To get to the risk number, you add:
The opportunity cost of recruitment time. Three to four months from advert to bum-in-seat, during which you're still pricing tenders yourself — or worse, turning them down. Conservative impact: £8,000–£20,000 in missed tender margin.
The ramp-up tax. Even a senior estimator needs eight to twelve weeks to learn your suppliers, your subcontractors, your mark-up structure, and your tender format. During that period, output is 40–60% of fully-trained productivity.
The retention risk. UK construction estimator turnover currently sits around 22% per year. Roughly one in four hires leaves within twelve months. If yours does, you're paying recruitment fees a second time and starting the ramp again.
Honest Year 1 cost of hiring a £55,000 in-house estimator, including recruitment time, ramp tax, and retention risk.
What outsourced electrical estimating actually costs in 2026
Now the comparison. REMC's four Monthly Service Plans for 2026:
- Essential — 9 hours/month — occasional support, 1–2 small tenders
- Progress — 18 hours/month — steady volume, 2–4 tenders
- Enhanced — 36 hours/month — active SMB tendering, 4–7 tenders
- Priority — 54 hours/month — high-volume or growing firms, 7–10+ tenders
Notice what's not in this list: no NI, no pension, no holiday cover, no sick cover, no software, no desk, no recruitment fee, no ramp tax. The fee on the bill is the full bill.
Pricing is tailored to your tender volume, sector mix, and average project size — discussed on a 20-minute call — but the ratio is consistent across our retainer clients: they get equivalent monthly tender coverage at roughly a quarter of the loaded in-house cost. Plus top-up flexibility when a peak week lands.
Twenty minutes on a call. We'll run the maths against your actual pipeline. No pitch deck.
The hidden costs nobody factors in
A few quieter things to weigh:
Concentration risk. With one in-house estimator, you've got a single point of failure. They take a fortnight off in August, your tender pipeline stalls. They quit, you start over. REMC operates a lead-plus-backup model — two estimators on every plan, so the work continues regardless.
Sector blind spots. An in-house estimator priced healthcare, education, or infrastructure before they joined you? Probably not. They'll learn on the job — which means your first three tenders in any new sector are at the back of the learning curve. Outsourced specialists arrive having priced that sector tens of times already.
The cost of saying no. Many firms turn down 30–40% of tender enquiries simply because they don't have time to price them. Every "no" is invisible — it never shows up in the P&L. But it's the largest single cost in this whole comparison.
When in-house actually wins
Honest answer: in-house wins when three things are true at once.
- Your tender volume is consistently 12+ per month for at least eighteen months running.
- Your work is highly specialised in one or two sectors where deep client/supplier relationships compound over years.
- You have the management bandwidth to recruit, onboard, develop, and retain a technical hire — and a credible Plan B if they leave.
If all three hold, the loaded cost still wins out on a per-tender basis. If any one of them doesn't, the maths tips toward outsourcing.
When outsourced wins
Outsourced wins in five common scenarios:
- Variable tender volume. Some months three tenders, some months ten. Fixed monthly plan, flex with top-up hours.
- Multi-sector work. You'd need three in-house specialists to cover what one outsourced team covers across nine sectors.
- Speed to start. REMC live in seven days. An in-house hire is twelve to sixteen weeks before they're useful.
- Cost predictability. Fixed monthly bill, no surprises. Helps you tender for the year and price your overheads cleanly.
- Risk-managed growth. You're not committed to a salary on day one of a growth bet.
A 5-question decision framework
Before you put that advert up, ask yourself:
- Have I priced at least 100 tenders in the last 12 months? (If no — outsource.)
- Is my pipeline growing or shrinking over the next 6 months? (Shrinking — outsource.)
- Do I have the time to manage and develop a technical hire? (Honest no — outsource.)
- Can I afford a £20k recruitment mistake if they leave in month nine? (Honest no — outsource.)
- Is my work concentrated in two or fewer sectors? (More than two — outsource is strongly favoured.)
Three or more "no" answers and the maths is clear: outsource first, hire later if and when the volume justifies it.
The honest version of the trade-off
A senior in-house estimator embedded in your team is genuinely valuable — over time. The problem is the over time part. Most contractors hire too soon, before the volume supports it, and pay the cost of a salary while waiting for the work to catch up.
Outsourcing lets you build the volume first, prove the demand, then hire when the maths is no longer marginal.