How Much to Charge for a Carpentry Job in 2026

What a carpentry quote needs to include

"Carpentry work, £600" leaves too much open to interpretation on a trade this varied. Cover these ten things and there's nothing left to argue about once the sawdust's settled:

1. 1Business details and confirmation you carry public liability insurance — standard for any trade working inside someone's home.
2. 2Customer name and site address, with access noted — stairs, parking, whether there's power on site for saws.
3. 3The work specified by task, not a vague "carpentry work" line — "hang 3 internal doors, fit hallway skirting, install loft hatch" leaves nothing to argue about later.
4. 4Timber and material spec — species, grade, MDF vs solid, veneer vs painted-grade — so there's no ambiguity about quality once it's fitted.
5. 5Ironmongery named — hinges, handles, latches, locks — and whether you're supplying it or the customer is.
6. 6Whether any door on the job needs to meet a fire rating (FD30, FD30S or FD60), and if so, whether it's a certified door set rather than just a fire-rated leaf.
7. 7Whether painting, staining or finishing is included — by default it usually isn't, and this is the single most common source of a "but I thought that was included" call.
8. 8Making good around new work — filling, caulking, touch-up to existing paintwork.
9. 9Disposal of old doors, offcuts and packaging.
10. 10Guarantee period on workmanship and payment terms, including any deposit for bespoke or made-to-order items.

Not every carpentry job is the same job

Most carpentry is priced fairly on task, timber and time. One category isn't — a door that has to actually perform in a fire — and it deserves its own line of thinking, not just a higher number.

Price by task, not a flat day rate

As a working guide for 2026: day rates run £220–£320, or £35–£45 an hour for shorter jobs, with London and the South East toward the top. Hanging a standard internal door with an existing lining and ironmongery fitted typically runs £90–£140 in labour, around two hours' work — more if the lining itself needs replacing or the opening is out of square. Fitted wardrobes average around £1,100, usually £800–£1,400 depending on size and how bespoke the carcasses are, over 2–5 days on site. Skirting and architrave runs £20–£40 a metre, averaging about £30/m fitted. A loft hatch on its own typically costs £230–£525 including VAT, and a ladder fitted at the same time adds £100–£220 for aluminium or £170–£290 for timber. Quoting any of these off a single day rate either overprices the quick jobs or underprices the slow, fiddly ones — price each task on its own merits and the total will actually reflect the work.

The fire door rule most carpentry quotes miss entirely

FD30 means a door provides 30 minutes' fire resistance; FD30S adds cold smoke seals; FD60 doubles that to an hour. The rating belongs to the tested "door set" as a whole — leaf, frame, seals, hinges and self-closer, tested together to BS 476-22 or BS EN 1634-1 — not to a door leaf sitting in whatever frame happens to be there. Fire doors are legally required at doors onto protected escape routes and stairwells, at flat entrance doors opening onto communal parts of multi-occupied residential buildings (widened by the Fire Safety Act 2021's amendments to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005), at HMO bedroom and risk-room doors under the HMO Management Regulations 2006, and anywhere Building Regulations Approved Document B specifies one for new or altered work. This isn't a paperwork technicality: a Slough landlord was fined £9,000 plus £5,556 in costs under the Housing Act 2004 and the HMO Management Regulations 2006, in part because fire doors in the property were missing or too degraded to provide the required 30 minutes' resistance. Serious breaches of the RRFSO itself carry an unlimited fine in a magistrates' court, or an unlimited fine plus up to two years' imprisonment in the Crown Court. None of that liability sits with the carpenter — but a quote that flags a door as fire-rated, and confirms it's being supplied and fitted as a certified set, is doing the landlord's compliance for them without being asked, which is exactly the kind of thing that gets a job booked over a cheaper quote that never mentioned it.

Why passing the door doesn't mean passing the installation

A certified FD30 door leaf fitted with an oversized gap around the edge, uncertified hinges, a missing or badly seated intumescent strip, or a self-closer that doesn't pull the door fully shut is no longer the assembly that was tested — even though the door itself would pass inspection sitting on a shelf. This is why fire door installation has its own third-party certification, separate from the door product: FIRAS (under the IFC Certified Fire Door Installer scheme) and the BM TRADA Q-Mark installer scheme are the two most recognised in the UK, and both audit the installer's actual fitting standard against the tolerances the manufacturer's test relied on — gap widths, fixing types, seal continuity — not just whether a certified product was used. Getting this certified, or at minimum stating clearly on the quote exactly how the door was fitted and to what tolerances, is worth more to a landlord customer than almost any other line on a carpentry quote, because it's the one thing standing between them and personal liability if there's ever a fire.

How to price the work

UK carpentry pricing varies by task, timber spec and region, but these are a fair starting point for 2026:

• Day rate £220–£320, or £35–£45/hour for shorter call-outs, higher in London and the South East.
• Internal door, hang only (existing lining, ironmongery fitted): £90–£140 labour, roughly 2 hours.
• Fitted wardrobes: £800–£1,400, averaging around £1,100, over 2–5 days depending on how bespoke the build is.
• Skirting and architrave: £20–£40/m, averaging around £30/m fitted.
• Loft hatch fitted: £230–£525 including VAT; add a ladder fitted at the same time for £100–£220 (aluminium) or £170–£290 (timber).
• FD30 door set, unglazed, supply only: roughly £65–£80 in ply veneer, £175–£200 in oak veneer — glazed sets run considerably higher.
• Fire door ironmongery (CE-marked hinges, self-closer, locks): £50–£200 depending on spec; intumescent strip supply & fit £10–£30 extra.
• Fire door fitting labour: price for the time correct tolerances actually take — a flat £30–£50 "fitting only" figure quoted by some suppliers assumes an already-perfect opening, which is rarely what's on site.

A worked example

A converted HMO needing bedroom fire doors plus general joinery in the same visit, priced and itemised the way described above:

£2,650 for four certified FD30S bedroom fire doors fitted to FIRAS installer tolerances, three standard internal doors hung on existing linings, a new insulated loft hatch with a folding timber ladder, and skirting and architrave through the hallway and landing. The fire doors, their ironmongery and their fitting labour are each their own line, so the landlord customer can see exactly what they're paying for and why it costs more than the standard doors on the same invoice — not a single blended "doors" figure that leaves them guessing which doors actually protect their HMO licence. 25% deposit to order the certified door sets, balance on completion. To accept, tap Accept on the quote.

Five details that get carpentry quotes accepted faster

• Name the fire door certification, if any door on the job is fire-rated. A line like "FD30S door set to BS EN 1634-1, fitted to FIRAS installer standard" costs nothing to add and matters enormously to a landlord or HMO owner who is personally liable if it's wrong — most of them have no way to judge competence beyond trusting what's written on the quote.
• Separate the door set, the ironmongery and the labour into their own lines. It shows the customer exactly why a fire door costs more than a standard one, and it stops "but the other quote was £200 cheaper" turning into an argument you can't win without showing your working.
• Name the timber spec, not just the category. "Solid oak" versus "oak veneer MDF" versus "primed softwood" reads the same on an invoice pad but means very different things to a customer — naming it does the same trust-building work that naming a paint brand does for a decorator.
• Photograph problem areas before quoting — an out-of-square opening, an uneven floor, a warped existing frame. Scribing and packing an awkward opening takes real time that a flat per-door rate doesn't cover. A photo on the quote explains why this particular door costs more than the standard rate, before the customer's had a chance to assume you're overcharging.
• State the guarantee and a one-line maintenance note. "12 months on workmanship; have the self-closer on any fire door checked annually" reads as genuinely professional, and for a fire door specifically it's a detail that protects the customer's ongoing legal compliance, not just your workmanship.

The fastest way to do all of this

A single fitted wardrobe is easy enough to price from memory. A job mixing standard doors, a loft hatch, some skirting and four fire doors that need to be named, certified and fitted to a documented standard is exactly where a rushed verbal number either misses the fire door detail entirely or buries it inside a number the customer can't verify.

This is what QuoteRocket is for. Describe the job in plain English — "4 FD30S bedroom fire doors, FIRAS-fitted, plus 3 standard doors, a loft hatch and ladder, and hallway skirting" — and it turns that into a branded, itemised PDF quote in under a minute, with the fire door line kept separate and clearly labelled every time. Your customer accepts it with one tap on their phone, and an accepted quote becomes an invoice in one click, so a job with six different tasks in it doesn't also take six different pieces of paper to get paid for.

Whichever way you produce the quote, the principles hold: price each task on its own merits rather than a flat day rate, name any fire door as a certified set rather than just "a door", and state how it was fitted — because on this one category of door, that line is doing more than winning you the job.

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