How Much to Charge for a Bathroom Fitting Job in 2026

What a bathroom fitting quote needs to include

"£4,500 for the bathroom" tells a customer almost nothing about what's covered, and nothing at all about who's wiring the extractor fan. Cover these ten things and there's nothing left to argue about once the old suite's already in a skip:

1. 1The suite spec — bath, shower, basin, WC and brassware — and whether it's supply-only, fit-only, or supply & fit.
2. 2Whether the shower area needs a full tanking system and wet-wall backer boards, or standard boards are enough for the rest of the room.
3. 3Whether the job touches the hot water cylinder at all, and if it's unvented, a named G3-qualified engineer priced as its own line.
4. 4Every piece of electrical work in the room — even a shaver socket or extractor fan on an existing circuit — priced separately with a named Part P registered electrician, since bathrooms are a special location.
5. 5Ventilation: whether the room has a window, and if not, a mechanical extractor rated to at least 15 l/s with the required overrun.
6. 6Whether existing waste and supply pipework can be reused for the new layout, or needs rerouting.
7. 7Tiling scope by m² and tile type, priced separately from the fit-only labour.
8. 8Removal and disposal of the old suite, tiles and any flooring.
9. 9A realistic programme in working days — tanking and adhesive both need proper drying time before tiling and grouting can start.
10. 10Guarantee period on workmanship, and payment terms including any staged deposit for a suite or tiles ordered in advance.

Not every bathroom job is the same job

The suite and the square footage set the headline price. Whether the job needs a Part P electrician, a G3-qualified cylinder engineer, or neither, is what actually decides how many people are on site and who's liable if something's wrong.

Ensuite, family bathroom or wet room — three different jobs wearing one name

A small ensuite swap — same footprint, like-for-like suite — can be done in as little as two days. A standard family bathroom refit typically runs 5–10 working days, most of it spent waiting for tanking and tile adhesive to cure properly before grouting can start. A wet room takes that further again: the whole floor gets tanked, not just the shower area, which adds both material cost and drying time and is a large part of why a luxury or wet-room-spec refit commonly runs 9–16 days rather than 5–10. Quoting all three at the same day rate either underprices the wet room or overprices the ensuite, and a customer who's had a bathroom done before will notice which.

The electrical work you can't quietly fold into your own day rate

BS 7671 splits a bathroom into zones based on distance from water, each with its own minimum protection rating: Zone 0, inside the bath or shower tray itself, needs a minimum IP67 rating and a maximum of 12V; Zone 1, the space above the bath or shower up to 2.25m, needs minimum IP65 and RCD protection (30mA) on any 240V fitting; Zone 2, the 0.6m perimeter beyond that and the area around a basin, needs minimum IP44; everywhere else in the room needs no special rating at all. Fitting an ordinary IP20 light fitting in Zone 1 isn't a paperwork slip, it's a real shock risk. Separately, and easy to miss if you're used to kitchens, a room containing a bath or shower is a Part P "special location" — and unlike a kitchen, where adding a socket to an existing circuit is non-notifiable, in a special location any addition or alteration to an existing circuit is notifiable too, on top of the standing rule that a brand new circuit or a consumer unit change always is. Wiring a new extractor fan into the existing lighting circuit, something that would be routine and non-notifiable in a kitchen, has to go through Building Control or a Part P registered electrician in a bathroom. Quote it as its own named, sub-contracted line.

The cylinder decision that needs a G3 qualification, not just plumbing experience

Plenty of bathroom refits leave the hot water cylinder untouched, but when one is being installed, moved or replaced — and it's unvented, which most modern systems are — the law is specific about who's allowed to do it. Only an engineer holding a current Unvented Hot Water (G3) qualification can legally install or commission an unvented cylinder; being Gas Safe or OFTEC registered on its own isn't enough. The work also has to be notified to local Building Control, unless the engineer is registered with a Competent Person Scheme such as NAPIT or APHC, in which case they self-certify instead. This isn't a box-ticking exercise: an unvented cylinder holds water at mains pressure and 60–70°C, and a badly installed one — particularly missing or incorrectly set safety valves — can fail with real force. A generalist bathroom fitter "having a go" at swapping a cylinder while they're already on site is exactly the kind of corner-cutting this qualification exists to stop. Name the G3 engineer on the quote, priced separately, the same way you'd name a Gas Safe engineer for a hob connection.

How to price the work

UK bathroom fitting rates vary by region, suite spec and whether a wet room or cylinder work is involved, but these ranges are a fair starting point for 2026:

• Day rates typically run £180–£350 across most of the UK, averaging around £320 and reaching £450–£480 for experienced fitters in London and the South East.
• A full bathroom refit averages around £7,000, with most homeowners spending £5,500–£8,000 for a standard family bathroom.
• A small bathroom or ensuite refit typically runs £2,200–£5,500; a large or luxury refit £11,000–£15,000 or more.
• Individual items: toilet £175–£350, basin £100–£275, bath £250–£400, shower enclosure £350–£800.
• A full tanking system for a shower area or wet room adds materially to both cost and programme versus standard waterproof backer boards elsewhere in the room.
• Sub-contracted trades are additional and separately priced: a Part P electrician wiring an extractor fan or shaver socket in the special location commonly runs £200–£350 including Building Control notification, and a G3-qualified engineer replacing an unvented cylinder like-for-like commonly runs £900–£1,200 supply and fit (or £300–£500 labour-only on a straightforward swap).
• A full refit typically takes 5–10 working days for a standard bathroom, 2–3 days for a like-for-like ensuite swap, and 9–16 days for a wet room or luxury spec — most of the extra time is tanking and adhesive drying before tiling and grouting can start.

A worked example

A standard family bathroom refit — new suite, a fully tanked shower area, tiling, and the electrical and hot water work each handled by the right registered trade:

£5,140 for a standard family bathroom refit, covering removal and disposal of the old suite and tiles, a new mid-range suite fitted, a fully tanked shower area, rerouted pipework for the new layout, 12m² of porcelain tiling, and two sub-contracted lines — a Part P registered electrician for the extractor fan and shaver socket with Building Control notified, and a G3-qualified engineer to swap the unvented cylinder with the work self-certified through a Competent Person Scheme. Nothing on the invoice was a surprise, because every sub-contracted trade was named and priced on the quote before anyone picked up a wrench.

Five details that get bathroom fitting quotes accepted faster

• Name the sub-contracted trades on the quote, not just their cost. "Extractor fan & shaver socket: J. Ellis, Part P registered, Building Control notified, £280" reads as a fitter who understands bathrooms are a special location, not one hoping nobody asks who wired it.
• Separate the suite from the tiling. A customer who wants to upgrade from a standard bath to a shower bath, or swap tile ranges, partway through quoting shouldn't force a full re-quote — clearly priced, separate lines let them swap either in or out on its own.
• Say plainly whether the shower area is fully tanked. "Fully tanked shower area, wet-wall backer boards to 2.4m" versus just "waterproofed" isn't just a spec detail — tanking changes your programme and stops a customer assuming a wet-room spec when they're actually getting standard boards elsewhere in the room.
• Mention the G3 qualification on the cylinder line, briefly. One line — "unvented cylinder replaced by a G3-qualified engineer, Building Control notified via [scheme]" — is the kind of detail a customer won't know to ask for, and it's genuinely reassuring if they've ever read about one going wrong.
• Price old suite and tile removal as its own line. It's real skip or van time that has nothing to do with fitting the new bathroom, and hiding it in the day rate just makes your total look higher than a fitter who itemises it.

The fastest way to do all of this

A new suite and some tiling is one number. A new suite, a tanked shower area, tiling, a sub-contracted Part P electrician and a sub-contracted G3 engineer is five numbers that all need to add up correctly and stay attached to the right supplier's name — exactly the kind of quote that gets scribbled on the back of a delivery note and then argued about later.

This is what QuoteRocket is for. Describe the job in plain English — "family bathroom refit, new suite, fully tanked shower area, 12m² porcelain tiling, sub-contracted extractor fan wiring and unvented cylinder swap" — and it turns that into a branded, itemised PDF quote in under a minute, with every sub-contracted line kept separate and priced on its own. Your customer accepts it with one tap on their phone, and an accepted quote becomes an invoice in one click, so you're fitting bathrooms, not chasing two different suppliers for what they charged you.

Whichever way you produce the quote, the principle holds: price the suite, tanking and tiling as your own work, and name every electrical and hot water element that legally belongs to someone else — before the job starts, not after the invoice lands.

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