Which daywork rates apply: RICS or CECA?

Neither publishes one rate you can simply charge. RICS publishes definitions of the prime cost of daywork, which say what goes into the cost of labour, materials and plant. There are separate RICS definitions for building work, electrical work and heating and ventilating work. Labour starts from the wage rates set for the trade, plus the employment costs the definition lists. RICS also publishes a schedule of plant charges for use with the building definition. Your subcontract then adds the percentages you tendered for overheads and profit on each part. CECA, the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, publishes its own Schedules of Dayworks for civil engineering work, with their own percentage additions. So the rate on a daywork sheet is not a figure you pick on the day. It is prime cost, worked out the way the named document says, plus the agreed percentages. Three things go wrong most. The subcontract names no schedule and no percentages, so every sheet turns into an argument. The sheet uses an old edition or the wrong trade's definition. Or your main contractor applies its own lower percentages. So find the daywork clause and its percentages before the first sheet goes in, and agree them in writing if they are missing. Our Unpaid Variation Prevention service sets the daywork terms up before the work starts, and our Variation Claim service revalues dayworks already cut back.