Is Your Spring Re-roof Quote Already Out of Date?

Construction materials prices rose 6.4% in the year to August 2026, the fastest annual growth since March 2023, according to the Department for Business and Trade figures published this month. Anyone who quoted a re-roof in the spring will recognise the problem straight away. Costs are climbing faster than tender prices can follow, and BCIS expects that to continue in the near term because weak demand limits how much of any increase a contractor can pass on to the client.

Materials Are the Fast Half

The All Work index is the headline. Repair and maintenance, where most domestic re-roofing sits, rose 5.9% over the same period. Fabricated structural steel went up 21.2% and rigid pipes and fittings 15.5%, while imported sawn and planed wood fell 1.6%. There is no single rate to apply. The mix on the job decides which way the materials line moves.

Builders merchant data tells the same story from the other side. Total volume sales in July 2026 were 7.6% lower than a year earlier, with value sales down only 0.6% and prices up 7.6%. Fewer units, close to the same money.

Labour Has Not Followed Demand Down

The assumption that a quiet market softens day rates has not held. Hudson Contract’s August figures put average weekly earnings for self-employed trades in England and Wales at a record £1,110, with London the only region down on both the month and the year, at £1,104. Ian Anfield, Hudson’s managing director, gave the reason: rates remain strong “not because the sector is booming but for structural reasons reducing the supply of skilled labour”.

The average roofer costs and day rates published nationally put a roofer at £207 a day, in a range of £165 to £242 depending on region, with the South East at the top. Nothing in the gang’s output has changed to match, so the labour line stays where it was while everything else drifts.

The Squeeze Lands on Fixed Prices

BCIS forecasts building costs and tender prices both rising by around 14% over the five years to the third quarter of 2031, though not at the same speed. Costs are expected to climb faster than tender prices in the near term, and total new work output is forecast to fall 3.7% in 2026. A fixed price agreed before the rise, with no mechanism written into it, absorbs the difference.

Price the Job in Three Parts

Split the quote into labour, materials and access, and state the assumption behind each. Labour is the part that can be held: a day rate or a rate per square metre, agreed with the gang before the scaffold goes up. Materials are the part that moves. One total on a page hides which part did the damage when the job runs over, and it leaves you nothing to point at when the client asks why.

Two habits carry most of the risk. Buy tiles, membrane and lead at the order point rather than the survey point, because a price held for six weeks is a price you are funding. Put a validity date on the quote itself, and a stated allowance for materials with a line saying what happens if the trade price moves beyond it.

What the Customer is Comparing You Against

The homeowner has searched for a national average before the first visit, and £207 a day looks steep for a job they expect to take two days. It is worth fifteen minutes on the phone explaining what the average excludes: scaffold, waste removal, lead work around a chimney, replacing battens and felt once the tiles are off. That conversation is easier before the price lands than after, and it costs nothing to have it in writing on the quote.

Put the Date on It

Take the two quotes sitting in your inbox that have not been accepted, and re-price the materials line before either is signed. For new work, quote with a date on it, name the materials allowance and what triggers a review. Demand is falling and costs are not. The contractor holding a price that has gone stale pays the gap.