Small Works  ·  Performance Report  ·  Mar – Jul 2026

Squats Gym

MEP fit out  ·  Leodis Developments Ltd

Turnover

£52,535

Duration

5 months

Own labour

51.5 days

Status

Complete

Profitable A strong 40.0% gross margin on an own labour led job. Your own engineers and the materials carried it, with only a small share subcontracted, the plastering and the flooring. The margin here rested on own labour productivity and buying the parts well, the opposite of the Marton Mills mix.

Gross profit

£20,999

40.0% of turnover

Turnover

£52,535

Single contract

Own labour

51.5 days

33% of cost of sales

Materials and hire

£18,931

60% of cost of sales

1

Financial outcome

Actuals
Turnover£52,535.00
Cost of sales(£31,535.84)
Gross profit£20,999.16
Gross profit margin40.0%
Administrative costs(£46.07)
Operating profit£20,953.09

No priced build up was captured for this job, so there is no tendered margin to measure against. The result is stated on actuals only. Capturing the estimate on the next small work would let us show buying gain and priced against actual.

2

How the job was built

Delivery and cost mix

The job was delivered mostly by your own engineers, on a heavy materials base, with plastering and flooring subcontracted. Own labour was the larger part of the labour and the materials were the largest block of cost. The mix below shows where the cost of sales went.

Own labour £10,300 · 32.7% Subcontracted works £2,305 · 7.3% Materials and hire £18,931 · 60.0%
Own labour 
Engineers payroll · 51.5 days£10,300.00
Subcontracted works 
Plastering · DRC£1,555.00
Flooring install£750.00
Materials and hire 
Parts purchased£15,390.66
Sanitaryware£3,249.18
Scissor lift hire£291.00
Total cost of sales£31,535.84
Materials were the biggest block of cost at 60%, with parts alone nearly half of the cost of sales. Own labour led the delivery and subcontract was minimal, so on this job the margin turned on how productive the engineers were and how well the parts were bought, rather than on managing subcontractors.
3

Duration and drag

Gross profit across the job

Total gross profit

£20,999

Earned over the whole job

Gross profit per month

£4,200

Average across 5 active months

Time on the books

5 months

Mar – Jul 2026

Own labour content

51.5 days

About 10 working weeks

Squats Gym returned a strong total profit, but it too ran across five months. Your own crews attended in March, May, June and July; in April the only attendance was the plasterer. That April gap is a clean example of the stop and start pattern small works fall into, and here it looks structural, plastering going in during April with the drying time before second fix could resume in May. Even where the gap is structural, the span still carries a cash and attention cost, so earning the same margin in a shorter programme is worth more to the business, for three reasons.

Cash comes first. On this job the cost went out as weekly payroll for your own engineers and as payments to materials suppliers, both on short terms, while the client's payment for the completed works lagged behind. The longer the job runs, the wider that gap between fast cash out and slow cash in, so closing it sooner is what keeps the position positive.

Second is management and supervision attention. A job that stays open for months keeps drawing office time, valuations, supervision and chasing, all out of proportion to its size. Closing it releases that bandwidth for bigger, better paying work.

Third is margin protection. The longer a job runs the more it is exposed to scope creep, client changes and hazy recollection by the time you reach final account and snagging. Momentum protects the margin that was priced.

Much of an MEP fit out's calendar span is structural, the trade sequencing, drying and curing times, subcontractor diaries, client access windows and material lead times. This is a case for compressing duration where it can be, not a judgement that this job was stalled.

4

Lessons and actions

For the next small work
Own labour delivered the margin. A 40.0% gross margin on an own labour led job, with materials the main cost and little subcontracted. Your engineers are productive on this kind of MEP fit out.Action: keep own crews on small MEP fit outs like this where they earn well.
Capture the estimate next time. With no priced build up we cannot yet say whether the margin came from good buying or was simply priced in, which matters most here because parts were nearly half the cost.Action: save the tender on the next small work so buying gain on the parts can be measured.
Compress the programme. The job spanned five months with April a gap for the crew. Materials were also the largest cost, so lead times drive the programme.Action: order the major parts at award and schedule the wet trades and second fix tighter so the crew is not stood down for a month.
Squats Gym  ·  Small works performance report  ·  Prepared July 2026  ·  Source: Xero profit and loss  ·  Confidential