The National Association of Construction Frameworks has recently published its 2020/21 report on school new build and refurbishment costs.

The exercise, led jointly by East Riding of Yorkshire Council and Hampshire County Council, is an annual review of the cost of undertaking new build, refurbishment, and extension projects relating to primary, secondary, and SEN schools. It involves both the Department for Education and local authorities across the country submitting school data for analysis and is conducted in conjunction with the Education Building and Development Officers Group (EBDOG) and the National Association of Construction Frameworks (NACF).

The analysis utilised data from over 1000 projects with a value totalling £5.57bn and is hugely beneficial for aiding construction professionals in indicating the expected costs of education construction projects. Data is anonymised so organisations aren’t identified beyond being thanked as contributors to the study.

Mike Raven, Principal Project Manager at East Riding of Yorkshire Council, said “The national school cost benchmarking exercise is always a great project to be involved with, we’re so lucky to get data from both the DfE and local authorities across the country and over the years I’ve made some great contacts in other organisations as a result. I’d urge anyone who either has new data that hasn’t been submitted in the past, or from an authority that hasn’t taken part previously, to get involved!”