Dayworks: How to Record and Recover Work That Isn't in the Contract

Some work can't be priced from the contract. The client asks you to break out an unexpected slab you found under the floor. There's no rate for it, no quantity, and no time to agree one before the gang's stood there waiting. So you do it on daywork — you record the labour, plant and materials it actually took, and you recover the cost.

That's what daywork is for: work that can't reasonably be valued using the contract rates. Used properly, it's a fair mechanism that protects both sides. Used carelessly — which is most of the time — it's the single biggest source of unrecovered cost on a small contractor's job. The work gets done, the money gets spent, and three months later the daywork claim gets rejected because nobody signed the sheet.

I've watched contractors carry thousands of pounds of genuine daywork cost purely because the paperwork wasn't there. The work was real. The cost was real. The recovery was zero. Let's fix that.

When daywork applies (and when it doesn't)

Daywork is a method of last resort, not a first choice. Most contracts make this explicit: work should be valued using the contract rates and prices where possible, similar rates where the work is comparable, and daywork only where the work can't properly be valued any other way.

That matters, because a QS will always try to value your extra work by measure first — it's usually cheaper for the client. If you've booked something as daywork that could have been measured against a rate, expect it to be challenged. Daywork genuinely applies when:

• The work is unforeseen and unmeasurable at the time.
• There's no applicable or analogous contract rate.
• The work is disruptive, piecemeal, or carried out under instruction with no time to agree a price first.

If the work fits a rate, use the rate. Save daywork for the things that genuinely don't.

How daywork is valued

Daywork is valued on the actual resources used — the prime cost — plus percentage additions. In UK practice this usually follows a recognised basis (many contracts reference the RICS/industry Definition of Prime Cost of Daywork carried out under a Building Contract), or the percentages written into your contract's daywork schedule. The three components:

1. Labour. The time actually spent, at the defined labour cost, plus the agreed percentage addition for overheads and profit.
2. Materials. The invoice cost of materials used, plus the agreed percentage.
3. Plant. Hire rates or the schedule rates for plant used, plus the agreed percentage.

The percentages are where money is won and lost, and they should have been fixed at tender — check what you signed up to. If your daywork percentages are thin, that's a tender lesson for next time; for now, the priority is recovering the prime cost you can prove.

The daywork sheet is the whole game

Here's the uncomfortable truth: a daywork claim is only as good as the sheet behind it. Everything else is secondary. So treat the sheet as the deliverable, not an afterthought.

A daywork sheet needs to record, at the time the work is done:

• The instruction — who told you to do it, when, and under what reference. Link it to the instruction, RFI or variation that gave rise to it.
• The date and location of the work.
• Labour — names, trades, hours, on that specific task.
• Plant — what was used, and for how long.
• Materials — what was consumed, with quantities.
• A description of what the work was and why it couldn't be measured.

Then get it signed. This is the part people skip, and it's the part that decides whether you get paid.

"Signed for record" vs "signed as agreed"

Understand the distinction, because it catches people out. When the client's representative signs your daywork sheet, they may be doing one of two things:

• Signing as agreement — accepting that the work was daywork and the resources are agreed. This is what you want.
• Signing for record purposes only — confirming the hours and resources were as stated, but reserving the right to argue later about whether it should have been daywork at all.

Most CAs will only sign "for record purposes," and that's fine — it still verifies your resources, which is 90% of the battle. What you must not do is fail to get a signature at all. An unsigned daywork sheet submitted weeks later, with no contemporaneous verification, is the easiest thing in the world for a QS to reject: "I can't verify these hours, I wasn't there, I'm not paying them." Get the signature at the time, whatever basis it's on, and your evidence is intact even if the principle is still in play.

Where daywork recovery goes wrong

The failures are boringly consistent, which is good news — they're all avoidable:

• No sheet at all. The work was done, nobody wrote it up, and now it's one person's memory against the QS's scepticism. This is the big one.
• Sheets submitted late. A daywork sheet produced at the time and signed within days carries weight. One that surfaces at the final account, unsigned, looks invented — even when it isn't.
• Booked as daywork when it should have been measured. Challenged and downgraded to a measured rate, usually to your cost.
• Vague descriptions. "Sundry works to ground floor — 3 men, 1 day." Against what instruction? Doing what? A QS can't value that, so they won't.
• No link to an instruction. Daywork done without any traceable instruction invites the response that it was never authorised at all.

Every one of these is a paperwork failure, not a work failure. Which means every one of them is preventable at zero cost.

Making it practical

At Construction AI, daywork is captured against the instruction that triggered it — labour, plant and materials recorded on site, linked to the variation or RFI, backed by the site diary and photos from the same day. When it flows into the payment application, the record is already assembled — instruction, resources, evidence, date — rather than reconstructed from memory the week before the final account. The daywork you can prove is the daywork you get paid for.

Daywork is fair money for real work. But the industry loses more of it to bad paperwork than to genuine dispute. Write the sheet at the time, tie it to the instruction, get it signed for whatever it's worth, and keep the evidence together. Do that and the honest money stops disappearing.

Frequently asked questions

What is daywork in construction?

Daywork is a method of valuing work based on the actual labour, plant, and materials used (the prime cost), plus percentage additions — used when the work can't reasonably be valued using the contract rates.

When should work be valued as daywork?

Only when it can't properly be valued by the contract rates or analogous rates — typically unforeseen, unmeasurable, or disruptive work carried out under instruction with no opportunity to agree a price first. If a rate fits, the rate should be used.

What should a daywork sheet include?

The instruction reference, date and location, labour (names, trades, hours), plant used and duration, materials and quantities, and a description of the work and why it couldn't be measured — recorded at the time and signed by the client's representative.

What's the difference between signing a daywork sheet "as agreed" and "for record purposes"?

Signing as agreed accepts the work as daywork with resources agreed. Signing for record purposes only verifies the hours and resources were as stated, while reserving the right to dispute whether it should be daywork. Either way, get the signature at the time — it verifies your resources.

Why do daywork claims get rejected?

Almost always for paperwork reasons: no signed sheet, sheets submitted late, work that should have been measured, vague descriptions, or no link to an authorising instruction — not because the work wasn't done.