Schedule of rates
A schedule of rates fixes the unit price of each item in a UK public contract. How it is priced, how it links to notional quantities, and how to fill it in.
Updated on September 5, 2026
A schedule of rates is the pricing document of a public contract paid by the unit rather than by a lump sum. The bidder enters a price for each item of work or supply, the square metre of painting, the hour of engineer attendance, the box of consumables. Once the contract is signed, those rates are contractual and the supplier is paid for the quantities the buyer actually orders.
How it works
The schedule of rates is issued blank in the tender pack, as a spreadsheet with one line per item and a fixed unit of measurement. You enter prices excluding VAT. You may not add, delete or merge lines unless the instructions to tenderers say so.
It is used wherever quantities are not known in advance: measured term contracts for building maintenance, highways and grounds maintenance, reactive repairs, IT support, and above all call-off contracts placed under a framework agreement. The NEC4 Term Service Contract and the JCT Measured Term Contract are both built around one. In construction, the National Schedule of Rates and similar published schedules are often used as the baseline, with bidders tendering a percentage adjustment up or down rather than pricing each line.
Because rates alone cannot be compared, the buyer usually attaches a notional quantities schedule: indicative volumes applied to your rates to produce a single evaluated price. The rates are deemed to be full and inclusive, covering overheads, supervision, plant, waste and profit. They may be fixed for the term or indexed under the price adjustment clause.
What it means for a bidder
Pricing a schedule of rates is an exercise in precision. Every rate must reflect your real cost, because you will be paid on that basis for years, whatever the mix of work turns out to be. One under-priced line that happens to be ordered constantly can turn a won contract into a loss.
Study the notional quantities to see which lines carry weight in the evaluation, but resist the temptation to load them: cutting the heavily weighted rates and inflating the rest is well known to UK evaluators, and a front-loaded or unbalanced schedule can be rejected as non-compliant or challenged as abnormally low.
Check the units, the number of decimal places required and whether every line must be priced. A blank cell is often treated as an arithmetical error or, worse, as an incomplete tender.
Example
A water authority sets up a four-year framework for repairs to its distribution network, with a ceiling of £3.2 million. The schedule of rates runs to eighty lines: excavation by linear metre, supply and lay of pipe by diameter, reinstatement of carriageway by square metre, out-of-hours call-out by visit. A civil engineering SME prices each line from its own cost model and is paid, throughout the term, on the quantities actually instructed.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a schedule of rates and a lump-sum breakdown?
A schedule of rates prices variable quantities. A lump-sum breakdown splits a fixed total price across defined works, and the total does not move with quantity.
Can I enter a zero or nil rate?
It is risky. A nil rate can be read as an unbalanced tender or as an item you intend to recover elsewhere. If an activity really is included in another rate, say so where the instructions allow it.
Can rates be negotiated?
Only if the procedure allows negotiation. Once the contract is signed, they move only through the indexation formula it contains.