How to budget crew accommodation as a project cost

Every project manager has done it: the accommodation line is a guess, the crew arrives, and the real cost is thirty percent higher than the number on the spreadsheet. The gap is rarely the weekly rate — it is everything the rate does not include, plus the decisions made before anyone looked at a listing. This is the budgeting version of the hotel-vs-house cost question, written for the person who has to defend the number to a QS.

Start with per-man-per-week, not per-house

The cleanest way to budget is per man, per week, because that is how the cost lands on the project. A whole house for six people at £1,400 a week is £233 per man per week. A serviced apartment for two at £900 is £450 per man per week. The house is cheaper per head because the fixed costs — rent, bills, management — spread across more people. That is the single biggest lever in the whole exercise: fill the house. A six-bed house with four people in it is a bad deal; the same house with six is the best deal on the corridor.

The per-man number also makes the comparison honest against a hotel. A hotel at £85 a night is £595 a week per man — before breakfast, parking and the fact that nobody shares. Crew accommodation at £233 per man per week is less than half of that, and the crew gets a kitchen, a washing machine and a place to park the van. The gap is why whole-house housing wins for anything longer than a fortnight.

What the rate includes — and what it does not

The headline weekly rate is only the start. A proper crew rate includes the things that make a house work for a working team: all bills (gas, electric, water, broadband), linen, and a weekly clean. That is the difference between a serviced crew house and a bare rental you have to furnish and manage yourself. If the rate does not say "all bills included", assume it is not, and add £30–£50 per week per house for utilities alone.

What is almost never in the rate, and what blows budgets:

• Damage deposits — usually one to two weeks' rent, refundable only if the house comes back clean. Budget it as a cash-flow line, not a cost.
• Mid-stay extras — extra linen, extra cleans, a lost key, a broken window. A working crew generates these; allow a small contingency.
• Cancellation windows — the notice period to end the booking. A project that slips by a week can cost a full week of unused rent if the window is missed.
• Parking — on-street permits, or a drive that fits the van fleet. The van parking rules post covers why this is a real line item, not a nicety.

Why the cheapest weekly rate rarely saves money

The cheapest listing on the portal is cheap for a reason, and the reason usually costs more than the saving. A house twenty minutes from the site adds forty minutes a day to the crew's commute — at a blended labour rate that is real money, every day, for the length of the job. A house with no drying room costs you wet kit and a demoralised crew in a Welsh winter (the weather post). A house with no parking costs you a van clamped or towed.

The right way to compare is total cost of the booking, not the weekly rate: rent, bills, management, parking, commute time, and the risk of a bad house turning over the crew. A slightly dearer house that is close, dry and parked is cheaper than a cheap house that is none of those things. This is the same logic as the drive-time guides — the cheapest address is rarely the cheapest booking.

A worked example

Six people, twelve weeks, a site on the South Wales corridor. Option A: a six-bed crew house at £1,400 a week, all bills, ten minutes from site, parking for six vans. That is £16,800 for the booking, or £233 per man per week. Option B: the cheap house at £1,050 a week, twenty-five minutes away, no parking, bills extra. Add £40 a week for utilities and £60 a week for the commute time and the parking hassle, and the "cheap" house is £1,150 a week effective — £13,800, but with a crew that is late, wet and parked badly. The £3,000 headline saving is a false economy the moment the crew turns over or a van gets towed.

What to put in the cost plan

• Per-man-per-week rate, filled to capacity — the honest number.
• One week's rent as a deposit line (cash flow, not cost).
• A small contingency for mid-stay extras and damage.
• Parking and commute time as a real line, not an afterthought.
• The cancellation window written into the project schedule.

Budget accommodation the way you budget any project cost: on the real number, with the hidden costs named. Done that way, crew accommodation is one of the most predictable lines on the plan — and one of the few that pays for itself in crew retention and on-time starts. If you want a number for your specific site, send us the details and we will price it properly.