Construction timesheet template for UK sites

What the sheet has to capture

Name, site, and for each day the start time, finish time, unpaid breaks and the total. A column for overtime or a different rate, a line for travel if you pay it, and two signatures: the worker's and the supervisor's. Without the supervisor's signature the sheet is a claim; with it, it is a record.

Write the site on every sheet, even for a gang that only works one site. When the same bricklayer does two days at one job and three at another, you want the hours to land on the right job cost, not on the first sheet the office finds.

What the law says you must keep

The Working Time Regulations 1998 require adequate records to show that the 48-hour weekly average and the night-work limits are being kept, held for two years from the date they were made (regulation 9). A timesheet with real start and finish times is exactly that record.

For the National Minimum Wage you must keep records sufficient to establish that you are paying at least the minimum rate. Since 1 April 2021 those records must be kept for six years, not three, so a sheet from this week needs to be findable in 2032. PAYE records are kept for three years from the end of the tax year, and under the Construction Industry Scheme a contractor keeps records of payments and deductions for three years. Keep everything six years and you cover all of them.

Sites with more than one gang

Use one sheet per gang per site, and have the supervisor sign each day, not on Friday. A sheet signed at the end of the week is a reconstruction; a sheet signed each evening is a record. Give each site a short code and write it on the sheet so the office can key hours to the job without guessing.

Where paper breaks

Sheets arrive late, get rounded to the half hour, or get lost in a van. When a worker disputes their pay, it is your record against their memory, and a sheet that was filled in on Friday from memory does not win that argument. An employment tribunal will expect the employer to produce the record; if you cannot, the worker's account tends to stand.

The other failure is quieter: the sheet is accurate, but nobody looks at it until the job is over. Labour cost per site is then a surprise at the end, not a number you managed on Wednesday.

When to move from the sheet to the app

The moment you have more than one site, or more than about ten people, the sheet is doing a job it was not designed for. Obrelier replaces it with a clock-in made by the worker, on site, that is verified when it happens. The hours are the same facts the sheet asked for, but they exist the moment the shift starts, per site, and they export as a spreadsheet for your payroll bureau. Keep the printed sheet for the day the phones are flat; use the app for the record.