Concrete Cutting and Drilling Pricing UK — Core Drilling, Diamond Sawing and Wall Chasing Costs (2026)

Diamond drilling and concrete cutting is one of the most specialist trades in construction. Whether you're a diamond drilling contractor pricing up your own work, or a builder, electrician, or plumber trying to understand what a subcontractor is charging you, knowing the going rates in 2026 matters. The costs involved are often opaque — diamond cutting sits in a niche that many general builders rarely deal with directly. This guide covers the key operations, what they cost, and what drives the price up or down on any given job.

Diamond drilling and cutting work is almost always subcontracted. Builders sub it out when a structural opening is needed, plumbers sub it out for pipe penetrations through walls and floors, and electricians use diamond drillers for cable entry points and containment chases. Understanding how specialist contractors price their work means you can include accurate PC sums in your estimates rather than guessing, and you'll know immediately when a quote looks high or low.

Core Drilling Costs Per Hole

Core drilling is the most common diamond operation — a rotating diamond-tipped bit cuts a clean, circular hole through concrete, brick, or masonry. Pricing is almost always quoted per hole, with depth and diameter being the two main variables.

• Small diameter (50–100mm), up to 200mm deep — typically £40–£80 per hole. Used for pipe penetrations, cable entries, small conduits. These are quick cuts and most contractors carry the kit as standard.
• Medium diameter (150–300mm), up to 200mm deep — typically £80–£150 per hole. Common for ventilation ducts, drainage pipes, and soil stack penetrations through floors and walls.
• Large diameter (300–500mm+), up to 200mm deep — typically £150–£300+ per hole. Required for large drainage runs, sump pits, access hatches. These consume blades faster and take significantly longer.
• Depth multiplier — beyond 200mm, expect to add £30–£80 per additional 100mm depth. A 600mm-deep core through a thick raft foundation costs considerably more than the same diameter through a standard 150mm floor slab.

Through-floor and through-wall cores differ in price where access and positioning are different. Overhead or inclined drilling — where the rig has to be set up on a frame or scaffold — carries a premium of 25–50% above standard rates due to additional set-up time and operator difficulty.

Floor Sawing Costs

Floor sawing uses a large walk-behind diamond saw to cut straight lines in concrete slabs. It's used for cutting expansion joints, opening up floors for drainage trenches, and isolating sections of slab for removal. Pricing is per linear metre, with depth as the key variable.

• 50–150mm depth — £15–£25 per linear metre. Standard domestic or commercial floor slab work.
• 150–300mm depth — £25–£35 per linear metre. Heavier industrial slabs or deep cutting for structural purposes.
• Reinforced concrete — add 20–30% to the base rate. Rebar blunts diamond blades much faster than plain concrete, and the operator needs to manage blade speed and water flow carefully to avoid damaging the cut or the saw.

Green concrete (freshly poured, not fully cured) cuts differently to hardened concrete — it can be faster but requires different blade specification and careful technique to avoid ravelling at the cut edges. Always tell the contractor how old the concrete is if it was recently poured.

Floor sawing always involves water or vacuum extraction for dust control. Water cutting is faster but leaves a wet slurry that requires clean-up — factor this into access and protection requirements. On-tool dry extraction with a vacuum and HEPA filter is slower but leaves a cleaner site.

Wall Chasing Costs

Wall chasing creates a narrow, straight groove in a plastered or rendered wall — used by electricians for first-fix cable runs and by plumbers for pipe chases. A diamond-bladed chaser runs two parallel cuts simultaneously, and the web between them is then knocked out with a chisel or SDS drill.

• Standard chase (up to 40mm wide, 30mm deep) — £8–£14 per linear metre. Typical for a single circuit cable run in a domestic property.
• Wider or deeper chases — £14–£20 per linear metre. Required for multiple cables or larger pipe diameters.
• Brick or blockwork (unplastered) — rates are similar but blade wear increases, so some contractors charge the higher end as standard.

All wall chasing should be carried out with on-tool extraction — the silica dust generated is a serious health hazard (see the health and safety section below). Contractors who offer dry chasing without dust control should be avoided.

Plaster reinstatement after chasing is a separate cost — not included in diamond cutting quotes. Budget £5–£10 per metre for a plumber or electrician to make good, or instruct a plasterer separately. For a typical ground floor rewire, wall chasing alone might run to £100–£250 in labour, with reinstatement adding a similar amount.

Hand Sawing (Wall Sawing) Costs

Hand sawing — also called wall sawing — uses a track-mounted diamond saw to make precise vertical or horizontal cuts in walls. Unlike floor sawing, the saw is fixed to a track bolted to the wall surface and travels along it, allowing accurate cuts for openings, penetrations, and partial cuts through structural elements.

• Standard wall sawing — £30–£50 per linear metre for cuts up to 300mm deep.
• Deep wall sawing (300–600mm) — £50–£60+ per linear metre. Required for thick structural walls, retaining walls, or deep beams.

Wall sawing is more expensive than floor sawing because setting up the track system takes time, working vertically is more physically demanding, and water management is more complex — water used in cutting runs down the face of the wall and must be contained. For creating door or window openings in concrete or dense block construction, wall sawing is typically the most precise and cleanest method available.

Wire Sawing Costs

Wire sawing uses a diamond-impregnated wire looped around a pulley system to cut through large or complex sections of concrete. It's the method of choice when conventional saws cannot reach — removing bridge sections, cutting out columns, making large structural openings in reinforced concrete frames, or working in confined spaces where a conventional saw cannot be positioned.

• Wire sawing rates — typically £60–£100 per linear metre, with significant variation depending on section thickness and reinforcement density.

Wire sawing is rarely used in domestic construction. It's a heavy civil and structural engineering technique, and most domestic or light commercial diamond drillers won't carry wire saw equipment. If you need it, you're looking at a specialist contractor with heavy plant, and the mobilisation cost alone may be £500–£1,000 before a metre of cutting is done.

Factors That Affect Diamond Cutting Prices

Published rates assume a reasonably straightforward job. In practice, several factors push costs higher:

• Concrete strength and aggregate — high-strength concrete (C40 and above) is harder on blades. Flint aggregate is particularly abrasive. Contractors will charge more where they know blade consumption will be high.
• Reinforcement (rebar) — cutting through rebar significantly increases blade wear and slows the cut. A heavily reinforced slab can cost 30–50% more than the same depth of plain concrete.
• Post-tension cables — post-tensioned concrete must never be cut without knowing the location of tendons. If PTI cables are present, cutting must stop immediately if a cable is struck and specialist structural advice is needed. Contractors will price additional care into jobs where PT is suspected.
• Access restrictions — if scaffold is needed to reach the cutting position, or if the saw has to be lifted or rigged in a confined space, allow extra time and cost.
• Overhead working — drilling upwards into a ceiling or soffit is significantly harder than drilling horizontally or downwards. Expect a 25–50% premium.
• Silica and dust control requirements — some sites (particularly healthcare, occupied offices, or food production environments) require wet cutting with slurry management or on-tool HEPA extraction as a condition of access. Additional set-up and clean-up time is chargeable.
• Working hours restrictions — if noise restrictions limit when cutting can happen (late starts, early finishes, noise abatement orders), day rates spread over fewer productive hours will increase the overall cost.

Scanning Before Cutting

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) scanning uses radio waves to detect what's inside a concrete element before any cutting or drilling begins. It can locate rebar, post-tension cables, electrical conduits, and voids. No reputable diamond drilling contractor should cut into a structural element without scanning first — and if a contractor offers to skip scanning to save money, that's a red flag, not a saving.

• GPR scanning cost — typically £150–£400 per visit, depending on the area to be scanned and the complexity of the structure. Many diamond drilling companies offer scanning as part of a combined package.
• Scanning does not replace structural drawings — it should be used alongside them, not instead of them.
• On floors, scanning is also essential for service avoidance — conduits and pipes buried in screed are not always where drawings suggest they are.

When budgeting for a diamond drilling package, treat scanning as a fixed cost that sits alongside the cutting costs. It is not optional on any job involving structural elements.

Getting Quotes for Diamond Work

Diamond drilling contractors need specific information to price accurately. Vague enquiries produce vague — and often padded — quotes. Give them:

• Hole/cut specifications — diameter and depth for cores; length and depth for saw cuts. More is better.
• Concrete specification if known — strength class, age, whether it's reinforced, whether post-tension is involved.
• Location and access — is this ground floor, upper floor, basement? Can a floor saw drive in, or does it need to be carried? Is there a goods lift?
• Whether scanning is included or required — some contractors include scanning in their rate, others quote separately.
• Programme requirements — diamond drillers are specialists and can be booked out weeks ahead on busy programmes. Lead times of 2–4 weeks are normal; if you need someone urgently, short-notice premiums apply.

For general builders pricing a project that includes diamond work, carry the diamond drilling as a provisional sum (PS) or prime cost (PC) sum in your estimate. Use the rates in this guide to arrive at a realistic figure, and make clear to the client that the final cost depends on a specialist contractor's quote once the scope is confirmed. This is standard practice and protects you from being held to a guess on specialist subcontract work.

Health and Safety for Diamond Drilling

Diamond cutting generates significant hazards. Any contractor carrying out this work — and any principal contractor managing a site where it takes place — needs to be across the following:

• Silica dust (RCS) — concrete cutting produces respirable crystalline silica, which causes silicosis and lung cancer with cumulative exposure. Minimum RPE is FFP3 disposable or a half-mask with P3 filter. Wet cutting or on-tool HEPA extraction is required to comply with COSHH regulations — dry cutting without controls is illegal and unacceptable.
• Noise — diamond saws and drills are loud. Both operators and bystanders require hearing protection when cutting is in progress. Noise levels can exceed 95dB(A) at the operator position.
• Hand-arm vibration (HAV) — prolonged use of core drills carries vibration exposure risk. Contractors should be tracking their HAV exposure and using anti-vibration tools where available.
• Working over water or in confined spaces — diamond cutting near water (tanks, flooded basements, drainage channels) or in confined spaces (plant rooms, service voids) requires a specific risk assessment and method statement. These are not standard operations and should be flagged at enquiry stage.
• RIDDOR — if a post-tension cable is struck, or a structural element is damaged, this must be reported and work must stop. The principal contractor and structural engineer must be notified immediately.

When requesting method statements from diamond drilling subcontractors, check specifically for silica controls, RPE specification, noise management, and scanning confirmation. A contractor who cannot produce a coherent method statement for their work is not a contractor you want on your site.