schoolbuildingcost.co.uk
Public-sector capital business case · workbench

School building cost (UK)

The £/m² number you can paste into a CIF Section C cost summary with the audit footnote already attached. Anchored on BCIS Q2 2026[BCIS Q2 2026], LGA Bench. 2024[LGA Bench.] and DfE Spec21 2024[Spec21].

Estimator inputs
Uplifts
CIF Section C

Cost summary (preview)

GIFA (DfE BB103 area calc)2,856[BB103]
Works at £/m² (BCIS Q2 2026 × East of England 1.00)£2,415[BCIS Q2 2026]
Sub-total works£6,897,240[LGA Bench.]
+ Net Zero Spec21 (+10%)£689,724[Spec21]
+ FF&E (8% of works)£551,779[LGA p.42]
+ Professional fees (10%)£689,724[CIF 2026-27]
+ Abnormals (5% allowance)£344,862[NAO Jan 2025]
ALL-IN SCHEME COST£9,173,329audit
£/m² all-in£3,212derived
£/pupil place£21,841derived
LGA Bench. 2024 · primary
Median to Q3 (above market)
Q1 £2,600Median £3,200Q3 £3,650Outlier £4,150
Your figure: £3,212/m²

Funding programmes

Dataset

LGA / EBDOG / BCIS benchmarks

Sortable £/m² and £/pupil ledger by phase, region and archetype. IQR and outliers shown.

Loaded scenarios

Archetype presets

12 pre-loaded scenarios from 2FE primary through SEN-120 and modular new-build.

Provenance

Audit footnotes register

Every figure on every page, linked to the source paragraph and last-verified date.

What this site is, and is not

This is a public-sector capital business-case workbench. It is built for trust estates directors, local-authority capital programme managers, school business managers and governors writing or scrutinising a CIF, SRP or basic-need case. It is not a vendor leaderboard, and it does not transact. The authoritative price data for UK schools lives in subscription extracts (BCIS) and Department PDFs (LGA, EBDOG, DfE), so every figure here is paired with its source paragraph so a reviewer can verify it in seconds.

Where uncertainty exists, the site says so. BCIS regional factors are themselves an average of contractor returns; LGA benchmarks include cohort schemes from multiple years; the +10% Spec21 uplift is an upper-end planning figure that comes down on schemes with a strong fabric-first design. Treat the all-in figure as a planning anchor, not a tender substitute, and instruct a chartered QS before commitment. See disclaimer.

Start where your case is