Invalid credentials, please check and try again.
Your account has not been verified by your nominated rep.
Your account has been suspended.
Sorry, an error occurred during registration. Please try again.
Your details have been passed to ECA and you will hear from us shortly.
The engineering services sector is a unique trading environment.
We have therefore developed guidance on various aspects of managing contracts, including claims and disputes. This covers considerations relating to design liability, variations, payment, completion, termination and BIM as well as the dispute resolution systems like court claims, adjudication and insolvency.
Our guidance notes help you navigate complex issues with confidence, from managing disputes and debt recovery to understanding supply chain issues,
We focus on developing guidance and templates in areas our Committee of Members and our helpdesk data, tell us are most useful/urgent – for example: payment or inflation - but if we don’t have a guidance note or template, we can create it. Contact the Legal & Business team via our helpline.
Developed by our Legal & Business experts.
| Disputes: Court requirements for construction disputes | Jul 2025 |
| Disputes: ECA mediation service | Mar 2024 |
| Employment: Historic asbestos claims from employees | Jan 2024 |
| Debt Recovery | Mar 2023 |
| Disputes: Letter of Claim | Aug 2025 |
Getting paid is always difficult and stressful. Contact us in the first instance and as your trusted intuitive business adviser we will give you an independent, neutral and objective assessment of your position and a strategy for moving forward.
Our advice may not always be what you expect, but it will be what you need to make informed decisions and achieve the best possible outcome.
| Retentions: Recovery Letter | May 2025 |
| Security: Performance Bond (Pro-Contractor) | May 2023 |
| Payment: Suspension Notice | Mar 2023 |
| Payment: Pay-Less Notices | Jun 2022 |
Alice Hartney, Legal and Commercial Advisor at ECA, outlines three key guidance notes and templates for ECA Members to help with retention matters, protecting your cash flow and avoid disputes.
ECA Legal & Commercial Advisor Annie Wang explains what Liquidated & Ascertained Damages (LADs) are, how they can impact your contracts, and how ECA can support you when LADs are included in contractual agreements.
Daywork rates are the basic cost to employers of hiring specific electrical workers and then using those workers on unplanned works, where the contract provides that cost recovery can be initiated by the recording of the unplanned works resources on a resource elemental basis.
ECA provides the Prime Cost Electrical Rates both, London and Nationally for specified workers. Other worker rates may be available, upon request. For rates in respect to JCT contracts, defer to BESA; their Mechanical rates are available via their website.
The ‘Prime Cost of Daywork’ components are agreed between ECA and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), three times annually. The main changes occur when wages are reviewed but changes also occur when, for instance, NI rates or thresholds change.
Daywork is one way to value instructed variations. The time spent on the variation is accurately recorded on a Daywork Voucher, the labour resource is then valued based on the applicable Prime Cost rate. The Prime Cost base rate is then uplifted by a percentage rate, one calculated to provide reimbursement of other ‘prime costs’ and a return for overheads and profit. This uplift is agreed at the time the contract is made and is intended to recover sums the business may also incur in its role as an employer. Potential components of what these other costs may be, are published by the RICS in their guide to ‘The Prime Cost of Daywork’ but the Association can advise if there is any doubt.
Members often request the ‘Transport Provided’ rates in the misguided belief these are Daywork. It is possible to use the JIB rates to produce rates on a similar basis but only the Own Transport Rates (for the trade classifications as indicated) are Daywork – as approved by the RICS.
The RICS / ECA Daywork Rate, Sheet 1 is agreed three times annually: January, April and September, the latest rates for 2026 are available below for download.
Methods of funding Apprentices and Trainees have recently undergone a major change. Costs now relate to the businesses size and their own agreements with their own training providers. The Association may have some ‘common’ illustrative examples or the ‘daywork’ sheet calculation sheets can be relayed to members who are prepared to modify them for their own purposes.
Other rates, Sheets 3, 5A and 5B, calculated on a similar basis provided below.
Members wishing to calculate an ‘all-in’ Daywork estimating rate, using the above, must give consideration must be given to potential on-costs, costs not included in these schedules.
The RICS and ECA agree rates for Mechanical Trades when employed under the respective JIB Agreement. Downloads available below.
We regularly issue advice on the latest analysis in UK economic performance and how that might impact our sector. As well as our guidance notes and templates, the below links offer additional industry updates on inflation.
Did you know ECA Growth Hub offers a course on Managing Contracts? Take a pragmatic look at how contract law works in real-life, based around the nuts and bolts of any agreement to ‘do’ works and services, and get paid for them.
What's more, as an ECA Member, you can use your annual Growth Hub grant to subsidise or cover the cost of your Growth Hub courses!
