How Much Does Drywall Repair Cost in the UK? 2026 Plasterboard Prices

A tub of filler costs £7. A tradesman standing in your hallway for half a day costs £130. That gap explains almost every plasterboard quote you will be handed, and why the same fist-sized hole is a £15 Saturday morning or a £160 invoice.

The figures below are what plasterers, handymen and small building firms quote across the UK in 2026. They assume standard 12.5mm tapered-edge board on timber or metal studs, two visits, and normal access.

Nobody prices a small patch by the square metre. Below roughly a square metre you are buying travel, setup and willingness to come out at all, which is why a 50mm hole and a 250mm hole often cost the same.

• •Screw holes, dents and hairline cracks, done yourself: £8-£20
• •Small patch up to 100mm by a tradesman: £80-£150, which is the minimum charge, not the true cost
• •Door handle or radiator bracket hole, 100-300mm, cut-in patch and skim: £110-£190
• •Full sheet replacement, 2400 x 1200mm, taped and skimmed: £180-£320
• •Re-skim one wall up to 12m²: £180-£350. A ceiling in a 3m x 4m room: £250-£420
• •Overboard and skim a tired or textured ceiling: £400-£750
• •Strip a lath and plaster ceiling, reboard and skim, waste included: £750-£1,500
• •Whole room, walls and ceiling: £900-£1,800

Materials are cheap, which is the source of most arguments between homeowners and trades. Builders' merchant prices, including VAT:

• •Standard 12.5mm tapered-edge plasterboard, 2400 x 1200mm: £11-£16, or £15-£21 at the DIY sheds
• •Moisture-resistant board: £18-£28. Type F fire-rated board: £20-£30 for 12.5mm, £26-£38 for 15mm
• •Multi-finish plaster, 25kg: £11-£16, covering 9-10m² in two coats. Bonding, 25kg: £10-£15
• •Ready-mixed jointing compound: £10-£15 for 5kg, £24-£32 for 20kg
• •Powder or lightweight filler: £5-£12. Mesh repair patch, 150mm: £4-£7
• •Scrim tape, 90m: £3-£6. Drywall screws, 1,000 x 32mm: £8-£13. Corner bead: £2.50-£4.50

A medium patch costs £12-£25 in materials, plus £35-£60 of first-time tools you keep for life. Note that filler and jointing compound do different jobs: the wrong one is why a repair telegraphs through the paint six weeks later.

On small repairs the split is brutal: 85-90 per cent labour, 10-15 per cent materials. A £150 patch is £14 of board and compound and £136 of skilled time. On larger work it moves to roughly 65 per cent labour, 20 per cent materials and 15 per cent waste, since a 4-yard skip is £230-£360 plus £30-£70 for a road permit.

Drying time is the cost nobody quotes openly. Fresh skim needs three to seven days before a mist coat, longer in a cold January, so expect two visits and two minimum charges. Sequence the trades: interior painting costs climb when a decorator waits on someone else's plaster. Geography matters too, with day rates of £160-£220 in the North East, Wales and Northern Ireland, £200-£260 across the Midlands and South West, and £280-£380 inside the M25.

• •Ceilings. Overhead work is 30-50 per cent slower and harder to finish flat, and a stairwell needs a tower scaffold at £60-£120 a day
• •Artex and textured coatings applied before 2000, which may contain chrysotile asbestos. Sampling is £40-£90; overboarding at £400-£750 is usually cheaper and safer than removal
• •Lath and plaster in pre-1930s housing. Old plaster repairs routinely double the affected area as the surrounding coat crumbles
• •Damp. Replastering before fixing the cause means paying for the same wall twice inside eighteen months
• •Movement. If the cracks keep reopening, you have a structural or thermal problem and filler is not the answer
• •VAT. Many one-man firms sit below the £90,000 threshold and charge none; a larger contractor adds 20 per cent to the identical job

Most plasterboard repair is maintenance and needs no permission at all. Five exceptions carry real cost.

• •Fire-rated board. Approved Document B requires 30 minutes of fire resistance for a garage ceiling below a habitable room, a loft conversion ceiling and a protected stairway. Substituting 9.5mm standard board downgrades the property and shows at survey; the right board is £8-£15 more a sheet
• •Part P. Making good is not notifiable, but the work behind it may be: new circuits, consumer unit changes, anything in a room with a bath or shower. A competent person scheme electrician includes the certificate; retrospective building control is £250-£450. Never skim over a junction box
• •Gas Safe. Concealed boiler flues in ceiling voids need 300 x 300mm inspection hatches. Board over one and an engineer can class the boiler At Risk at the next service. Two hatches cost £90-£180
• •Listed buildings. Internal plasterwork needs listed building consent, and stripping lime plaster from a Grade II property without it is a criminal offence. Lime replastering runs £60-£95/m² against £25-£40 for gypsum
• •Landlord duties. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 make damp-related plaster damage the landlord's, and Awaab's Law sets investigation timescales in social housing. Tenant damage can come off a deposit, but adjudicators rarely allow a whole room re-skim for one patch

• •Door handle through a hallway wall, 1970s semi in Leeds. One 200mm cut-in patch, scrim tape, two coats of compound. Handyman at the two-hour minimum: £95 labour plus £14 materials, £109 all in. Done yourself: £18 of materials and about £40 of tools
• •Water-damaged bedroom ceiling under a leaking en-suite waste, 1998 estate house in Reading. Two sheets replaced, joints taped, whole ceiling skimmed to avoid a visible line. Plasterer at £240 a day for a day and a half: £360 labour, £48 materials, £30 waste. £438, plus £180 of plumbing first
• •Landing ceiling in a Bristol Victorian terrace, opened during a loft conversion. Lath and plaster stripped, 15mm Type F fire board fixed and skimmed. Two days at £260 plus a labourer: £780 labour, £120 materials, £150 skip share. £1,050, part of the building control sign-off

Methodology: these ranges come from quotes gathered across nine UK regions in winter 2025 and spring 2026, trade counter pricing checked in April 2026, and published plastering day rates. Prices include VAT where charged and assume ground or first floor access. We revise them annually; plus or minus 30 per cent by region is normal, not evidence of overcharging.

• •Ask for day rate, days and materials separately, take three quotes, and discard the outlier both ways. The cheapest is usually someone who never looked into the ceiling void
• •Confirm in writing who removes waste and who makes good. Plasterers do not decorate, and small jobs suit handyman rates better than a plasterer's day
• •Ask whether VAT is included and whether the firm is registered. A 20 per cent surprise at invoice stage is the commonest complaint we hear
• •Insist on a written quotation, not an estimate. Pay no more than a 25 per cent deposit and never settle in full before the finishing visit
• •If access is easy and the hole small, price the DIY route first: patching a hole in plasterboard is within most people's reach