Home Renovation Cost Calculator: UK Prices for 2026

Ask ten homeowners what their project will cost and nine quote the price of the things they can see: the units, the suite, the flooring. It is the invisible half of a budget that ruins projects — the plasterer who has to follow the electrician, the making good, the skip, the second skip, and 20% VAT on nearly all of it.

A calculator is only arithmetic. What makes it accurate is honest inputs and a clear head about which lines you can take on yourself. Below is the method we use to build a budget from a blank sheet, with 2026 UK rates, worked examples, and a plainly marked point where doing it yourself stops being thrifty and starts being illegal.

Most online estimators ask how many bedrooms you have, which tells you almost nothing. These are the inputs that genuinely move a UK figure, roughly in order of impact:

• •Floor area of the rooms being touched, in m² — not the whole house. A 12 m² kitchen and a 16 m² one are 30% apart on tiling, flooring and units.
• •Specification tier. Budget, mid or high moves materials by a factor of three and barely touches labour.
• •Age and construction. Pre-1940 means lath and plaster, possible lead pipework and floorboards that fight back: add 10-15%.
• •Whether services move. Relocating a soil pipe, gas point or consumer unit costs far more than the fitting itself.
• •Structural change, yes or no. One steel beam pulls in an engineer, building control and a week of programme.
• •Region. London and the South East run 25-40% above national labour rates; the North East, Wales and much of Scotland sit 10-15% below.
• •Access. A third-floor flat or a terrace with no side return adds days of carrying, plus a skip permit.
• •Who manages it. A main contractor adds 15-25%; self-managing saves that and costs you your evenings.
• •VAT status of your trades. A sole trader under the £90,000 threshold does not charge VAT; a limited company builder does.

All rates below are 2026 UK averages excluding London, drawn from quotes across the Midlands, the North and the South West. Day rates assume eight hours, tools supplied, materials not.

Every example includes waste removal and making good, and excludes furniture, planning fees and anything behind a wall we have not opened. Contingency is 10% on post-1980 housing and 15% on anything older — not padding, but the money you will spend on the rotten joist you could not see. Our guide to budgeting a home renovation covers the order in which money should leave your account.

• •General builder: £220-£300 per day
• •Electrician: £45-£70 per hour, or £300-£420 per day plus certification
• •Plumber: £280-£400 per day; gas work carries a £60-£90 premium
• •Plasterer: £180-£250 per day, or £22-£32 per m² skimming
• •Tiler: £200-£280 per day, or £35-£55 per m² fixed only
• •Joiner £220-£320 per day; decorator £160-£220 per day
• •8-yard skip £280-£420 delivered and collected; scaffold to a rear elevation £700-£1,400 for two weeks

Mid specification, same layout, one appliance moved — Britain's most common job, and its most underestimated.

• •Units, worktop and handles: £4,800
• •Appliances (integrated oven, hob, extractor, fridge freezer, dishwasher): £2,100
• •Joiner, six days at £280: £1,680
• •Electrician, two days plus Part P certificate: £780
• •Plumbing alterations and appliance connections: £450
• •Plastering two walls and the ceiling: £620
• •Splashback tiling and decoration: £540
• •LVT flooring, 12 m² supplied and fitted: £660
• •Skip, fixings and sundries: £420
• •Subtotal £12,050, plus 12% contingency £1,446 = about £13,500

The bathroom is 4.5 m² in a pre-war semi, suite staying put. Below it is a light refurbishment of a 92 m² three-bed: no extension, no structural work.

• •Suite, brassware, screen and thermostatic mixer: £1,630
• •Tiles, 22 m² at £28 per m², plus tanking and adhesives: £876
• •Plumber five days, tiler four days, electrician one day: £3,120
• •Plastering, making good and waste: £560
• •Subtotal £6,186, plus 15% contingency = about £7,100
• •— Whole-house light refurbishment, 92 m² —
• •Full rewire and new consumer unit: £6,200
• •Boiler and radiators: £4,900
• •Overboarding and replastering throughout: £5,400
• •Kitchen £13,500 and bathroom £7,100 as costed above: £20,600
• •Flooring, decoration and window replacement: £17,500
• •Skips, scaffold and building control fees: £2,200
• •Subtotal £56,800, plus 15% contingency £8,520 = about £65,300, or roughly £710 per m²

This is the line most calculators ignore, and it decides whether your savings are real. A competent DIYer can handle strip-out, removing a non-load-bearing stud wall, fitting and levelling kitchen carcasses, hanging doors, floating floors, tiling, skirting, silicone and all decoration. In England and Wales you may also replace a like-for-like socket, switch or light fitting on an existing circuit outside a bathroom without notifying anyone. Those lines remove 25-35% of a project's labour cost.

The following are not judgement calls. They are regulated, and getting them wrong voids your buildings insurance and stalls your sale when the buyer's solicitor asks for certificates:

• •Any gas work at all — moving a hob, touching a boiler or its flue, altering pipework. Gas Safe registration is a legal requirement, not a preference.
• •New circuits, consumer unit replacement, and any electrical alteration in a room containing a bath or shower: notifiable under Part P in England and Wales, a building warrant matter in Scotland.
• •Unvented hot water cylinders, which need a G3-qualified installer.
• •Removing a load-bearing wall or chimney breast. Budget £400-£900 for engineer's calculations and £350-£700 for building control before the steel arrives.
• •Asbestos insulating board or pipe lagging — licensed contractor only. Pre-2000 textured coatings are non-licensed but still need trained operatives, not a scraper and a shed mask.
• •New connections into a public sewer, or a soil stack tie-in.
• •Structural work on a shared wall: two months' notice under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
• •Anything above single-storey height needing a scaffold rather than a ladder. Falls, not electricity, are what kill people on domestic sites.

Add your lines, apply the regional adjustment, then add contingency last — applying it before the uplift understates it. If your total lands within 15% of the benchmarks in our renovation cost per square metre guide, your assumptions are sound. If it is 30% below, you have forgotten making good, waste or VAT, in that order.

When quotes arrive, compare their shape rather than the bottom line. One that is 25% cheaper is almost always missing scope — plastering, waste, or a provisional sum for electrics that will grow. Our guide to comparing contractor estimates sets out the questions that flush that out, and a separate breakdown covers what a full rewire should cost. Before anything structural is agreed, check whether it needs consent using our guide to planning permission and building regulations.

The contingency is the line people delete to make the spreadsheet work, and the only line guaranteed to be spent. If the budget balances only without it, the project is too big — cut the scope, not the safety net.