Hiring a bricklayer: reading a quote that includes the bits that matter

What the job involves

Bricklayers price most work per square metre of finished wall, or sometimes per thousand bricks laid. A single-skin garden wall is the simplest structure; double-brick and cavity walls use twice the bricks and considerably more labour. Piers, curves, arches and face brickwork that has to match an existing home all slow the laying rate and push the rate up.

The brick itself is a big lever. Standard commons are cheap and usually rendered or hidden; face bricks, recycled bricks matched to a period home, or long-format designer bricks can double the material cost. Then there's the footing — the concrete foundation every decent wall sits on. It's a separate cost that catches people out, because a quote that omits it looks cheaper until the wall needs one anyway.

Retaining walls are their own conversation: anything much over a metre generally needs an engineer's design and council approval, plus proper drainage behind it, because retaining walls fail from water pressure, not weight.

How the cost works

A small repair and repoint sits at the bottom of the range, a new brick garden wall or fence with piers and a footing lands in the middle, and double-brick walls for an extension or a long engineered retaining wall run to the top. The estimate on this page adjusts for wall area, construction and brick type, so use any figure as a starting point rather than a fixed price.

The construction type and the brick choice move the number most, with access a quieter third factor — a tight site where every brick has to be barrowed a long way adds labour hours. When you compare quotes, the honest way to line them up is to confirm each one includes the footing and states the same brick, because those two gaps explain most of the difference between a cheap quote and a fair one.

Verifying the bricklayer

Whether bricklaying legally needs a licence depends on your state and the value of the work — in some states structural bricklaying over a threshold requires a builder's or bricklaying licence, in others it's tied to the overall building permit. Check your state's building authority for the current rule rather than assuming, and where a licence applies, verify it and the ABN before work starts.

Beyond the paperwork, ask to see walls the brickie laid several years ago — good brickwork shows in straight courses, consistent joints and how it has weathered. For repairs on older homes, take a sample brick to a brick-matching service before work starts, so the patch doesn't announce itself. And always confirm, in writing, whether the footing is in the quote.

Mistakes to avoid

Most bricklaying regrets trace back to a missing footing, a mismatched brick, or a retaining wall that skipped its engineering.

• Comparing quotes without checking whether each one includes the concrete footing
• Building a retaining wall over about a metre without engineering, drainage and approval
• Not matching bricks on an older home, so the repair stands out for good
• Assuming single-skin and double-brick cost the same — double is far more brick and labour
• Skipping the licence check in states where structural brickwork requires one
• Choosing the cheapest quote when it turns out to have left out the footing or the better brick