How Much Does Interior Painting Cost in the UK? 2026 Price Guide

A quote for a single bedroom can land anywhere between £280 and £650, and both ends can be entirely honest. The gap is almost never the paint. It is how many days the job takes once filling, caulking, sanding and cutting in are counted properly, and whether the decorator is pricing two coats or three.

Below are the ranges we see on UK quotes in 2026, broken into parts you can check line by line: day rates, unit rates, materials, and the prep hours that quietly decide the total. Figures exclude VAT unless stated — many UK decorators trade below the £90,000 registration threshold and do not charge it.

Supply-and-fit totals for a self-employed decorator: two coats of trade emulsion on sound, previously painted surfaces. Woodwork is included only where stated.

Day rates are the number worth knowing: almost every quote is a rate multiplied by an estimate, then rounded. Learn your local rate and you can work backwards to how many days have been allowed.

• •Box room or small single bedroom, walls and ceiling: £280-£450
• •Double bedroom around 3.5m x 3m, walls and ceiling: £380-£650
• •Living room 4m x 4m with a bay window, walls and ceiling: £550-£950
• •Kitchen or bathroom, cutting around units and tiling: £350-£600
• •Hall, stairs and landing in a two-storey house, including doors and skirting: £900-£1,800
• •Full repaint of an empty three-bedroom semi, walls, ceilings and woodwork: £3,000-£5,500
• •Decorator day rates: £160-£230 in Wales, the North East and much of Scotland; £190-£260 in the Midlands, North West and South West; £230-£300 across the South East; £280-£400 inside the M25

Larger jobs are often priced per square metre of wall rather than per room, which makes them far easier to compare. Measure the perimeter, multiply by ceiling height, then subtract roughly 1.8m² per door and 1.5m² per window. Working out how much paint you actually need first gives you a sanity check on the materials line.

• •Two coats of emulsion on sound walls: £7-£12 per m², labour and paint included
• •Ceilings: £8-£14 per m² — more masking, slower going
• •Fresh plaster: add £2-£4 per m² for the mist coat and the extra suction
• •Internal door, both faces plus frame, prepped and two-coated: £55-£110
• •Skirting and architrave: £7-£14 per linear metre
• •Trade emulsion, 10 litres: £40-£60 (Dulux Trade, Johnstone's Trade, Crown Trade)
• •Retail emulsion, 5 litres: £26-£38. Heritage brands: £58-£70 for 2.5 litres
• •Coverage: 12-14m² per litre on sealed plaster, 8-10m² on fresh, porous or textured surfaces
• •Consumables per room: caulk £4, filler £8, low-tack tape £7, roller sleeves £10, dust sheets £15-£25

On a standard repaint using trade paint, expect roughly 75% labour and 25% materials. A £480 double bedroom is about £360 of decorator time and £120 of paint and sundries — a ratio that surprises anyone who has priced tins in Screwfix and assumed the rest is profit.

Specify heritage paint and the split moves to roughly 60/40, because 2.5 litres of estate emulsion costs what 10 litres of trade costs. A durable paint sheen in a hallway is money well spent; a fashionable brand on a spare-room ceiling is not.

The biggest hidden cost is prep. On a tired room, filling, caulking and sanding is 50-60% of the labour hours before a finish coat goes on, which is why a quote with no prep line is not cheaper — just less complete. Filling cracks and holes yourself beforehand is the most reliable way to shave a day off the bill.

Two rooms of identical size can differ by £300 for reasons that have nothing to do with square metres.

• •Ceiling height above 2.6m: platforms and slower cutting in, add 10-20%
• •Dark to light colour change: three coats instead of two, add 30-40% to walls
• •Artex or textured ceilings: more paint, slower rolling, add £3-£5 per m²
• •Wallpaper: stripping it properly adds £120-£350 per room, more if it comes off in postage stamps
• •Water stains or nicotine: stain block at £30-£45 per 2.5 litres, plus an extra coat
• •Furnished rather than empty: add 15-25% for covering and reinstating each day
• •Pre-1980s woodwork: assume lead paint and budget for wet sanding, not dry
• •Stairwell access: a stair platform is £70-£120 a week to hire

Real arithmetic, using mid-range figures from a Midlands decorator at £220 a day.

• •Double bedroom, 3.6m x 3.2m, 2.4m ceiling, pale over pale: 29m² of wall, 11.5m² of ceiling. A day and a half at £220 = £330 labour. Materials: 5L colour £34, part of a 10L white £22, sundries £15 = £71. Total £401 ex-VAT; expect quotes of £380-£500. Doing it yourself: £110 and a weekend.
• •Hall, stairs and landing, 1930s semi: 48m² of wall including a high stairwell, five doors and frames, 26 linear metres of skirting, spindles and a handrail. Four and a half days = £990 labour, materials £195, platform hire £80. Total £1,265 ex-VAT; quotes run £1,150-£1,600. The spindles alone are half a day.
• •Empty three-bed semi before moving in, 85m² floor area, walls, ceilings and all woodwork: two decorators for nine days = £3,960 labour, plus £620 of trade materials. Total £4,580 ex-VAT. Specify heritage paint throughout and materials jump to £1,400-£1,900, pushing the total past £5,800.

Ask every decorator for two numbers: the day rate and the number of days. A quote you can reverse-engineer is a quote you can compare. Then check the written detail against this list.

• •The number of coats is stated in writing — not 'as required'
• •Prep is itemised: filling, caulking, sanding, mist coating new plaster, stain blocking
• •Paint is named by product, not brand alone. Contract matt is a new-build handover finish, not a durable topcoat for a family hallway
• •VAT status is clear. A £2,000 quote that becomes £2,400 on the invoice is a bad surprise
• •Deposit is 10-25% for materials on a large job, nothing at all on a single room. Half up front in cash is a warning
• •Too cheap: an effective rate under £130 a day, one coat, no prep mentioned, or a price given over the phone with no site visit
• •Too expensive: over £18 per m² for plain two-coat emulsion, materials above 40% of the total with no premium brand named, or day rates over £320 outside the South East

These figures come from decorator day rates quoted across five UK regions in the first half of 2026, merchant and retail list prices at Brewers, Dulux Decorator Centre, Screwfix and Toolstation, and the coverage rates on manufacturers' data sheets rather than the optimistic ones on the tin. Ranges are ex-VAT for sole traders and assume 2.4m ceilings unless stated.

Prices drift. Trade emulsion rose roughly 6% across 2025 and labour has outpaced materials for three years, so treat any figure older than twelve months as indicative. Work is seasonal too: quotes soften in January and February when diaries are thin, then firm up from May. Exterior painting costs follow a different, far more weather-dependent pattern.