Cold Planing / Road Milling – cost per m² – UK 2026 Rate Guide

Budget rate for supply & lay · typical budget rate before your adjustments

Labour, plant, materials, outputs and waste — yours to edit, as an Excel. Three free.

Rates are UK national (non-London): central London and constrained urban sites typically run dearer — adjust the labour, plant and access lines in the build-up accordingly.

Cold planing / road milling

per m² · supply & lay

£1.3 – £2.4 / m²

What is it

The cold planing (milling) of the existing bituminous road surface, priced per m² of planed area. A half-lane (~1 m) cold planer mills off the worn surface to depth in a single pass so a fresh binder or surface course can be laid back. This rate prices the planing / milling operation ONLY — the arisings (road planings) are a recycled resource carted away separately, and the binder / surface courses laid back on the planed base, kerbs, ironwork, road markings and traffic management are all separate items. The rate carries three operations:

Machine planing — a half-lane operated cold planer mills the bituminous surface to depth in a single pass.
Edge & ironwork trim — operatives on foot trim around ironwork, gullies and edges the machine cannot reach.
Sweep — the milled surface swept by hand / broom ready for the courses to be laid back.

Rate range by planing scope

Large-area open-site£1.3 – £1.7 / m²

Standard carriageway / estate£1.5 – £2.0 / m²

Small-area / restricted£1.9 – £2.4 / m²

Budget rate per m².

3 key cost drivers

Depth, substrate & access

A single-pass ~40–75 mm plane of a sound surface on long open runs mills fastest. Deeper or multi-pass full-depth planing, short runs, many bends, ironwork and manholes to trim around, night working with traffic management and restricted access all slow the machine and lift the rate per m². The London & South-East market runs dearer. Region rides this note, not a dropdown.

Planing scope & machine class

Standard carriageway or estate planing with a half-lane machine is the priced default. Large-area open-site planing on long runs costs less per m²; small-area, restricted-access or specialist patch planing, with far more moving and setting-up per m², runs dearer. The operated planer dominates a planing rate, so the job scale and machine class are the main lever — the calculator flexes the planer across its day-rate band.

Location

London and the South East typically add around 20% to labour.

Estimator

Budget rate generator

Planing scope

£1.5 – £2.0 / m²

Covers the operated cold planer, the on-foot gang, edge/ironwork trim & hand sweep and O&P · excl. arisings haulage/disposal, mechanical sweeping, the courses laid back, kerbs, ironwork, markings, traffic management & VAT

Exclusions

Lifting & material distribution — telehandler / forklift, hoist and site-distribution labour (an attendance, in main-contractor prelims)
Haulage & disposal of the arisings (road planings, a recycled resource carted separately) & heavy mechanical road sweeping
The binder / surface courses laid back, kerbs & edgings, ironwork adjustment, road markings, traffic management, prelims & VAT
Scaffold supply (usually in preliminaries)
Preliminaries — main-contractor site set-up, management & welfare
VAT