How Much to Charge for a Fencing Job in 2026

What a fencing quote needs to include

"24m fence — £3,200" tells a customer almost nothing about what they're getting, and nothing at all about whether it's even their fence to replace. Cover these ten things and there's a clear answer ready for every question, including the ones that only come up after the panels are up:

1. 1Fence run length in metres and finished height, broken down by section if more than one boundary needs work.
2. 2Fence style and material — closeboard, lap/waney panel, picket, post-and-rail, trellis topper, metal or composite — since price per metre varies sharply between them.
3. 3Post type and spacing (concrete or timber, centres in metres) and gravel boards to keep timber off the ground.
4. 4Confirmation of which boundary you're actually being asked to replace, checked against the Land Registry title plan rather than assumed from which side looks like the customer's.
5. 5Whether the finished height stays within the permitted development limit — 2 metres generally, 1 metre next to a highway used by vehicles — or whether planning permission needs applying for first.
6. 6Whether the property is listed, in a conservation area, or covered by an Article 4 direction, any of which can remove permitted development rights regardless of height.
7. 7Removal and disposal of the existing fence, with a licensed waste carrier reference where it applies.
8. 8Gates — style, width, hardware, and whether they're being replaced or reused — priced as their own line, not folded into the per-metre fence rate.
9. 9Groundworks: concreting posts, any change in ground level along the run, and tree roots or old foundations that could be in the way.
10. 10Guarantee period on posts and timber treatment, and your payment and deposit terms.

Not every fencing job has the same legal footing

Panel type sets the headline price. Three separate questions — none of them about the fence itself — decide whether the job goes smoothly or comes back to bite someone.

Whose fence is it, actually?

There's a persistent myth that the boundary on your left is always yours to maintain. It isn't — no such legal presumption exists in England and Wales. The real answer, if it's recorded at all, is on the Land Registry title plan: a T-mark against a boundary means that owner is responsible for it, and an H-mark (a mirrored T) means it's shared. The catch is that plenty of titles carry no marks whatsoever, because there's no legal obligation for boundary ownership to be shown on a deed in the first place — in which case it comes down to the original conveyance, common law, or simply asking the neighbour before quoting. The "good side faces out" convention — the finished, rail-free face pointing away from the owner's garden — is a genuine trade custom, but it's not proof of ownership and shouldn't be quoted as if it were.

How high can you go without planning permission?

Under permitted development, a fence, wall or gate can reach 2 metres high anywhere that isn't next to a highway used by vehicles (its footpath counts too) without needing planning permission. Next to one of those, the limit drops to 1 metre. Go over either limit and permission is required — and if an existing fence is already taller than the limit allows, it can't be raised any further without applying, either. Three things remove permitted development rights regardless of height: the property being listed, sitting within a listed building's curtilage, being in a conservation area, or being covered by an Article 4 direction that's specifically withdrawn the right to alter boundary structures. None of this is exotic — it's exactly the kind of thing a customer assumes their fencer already knows, right up until the council gets involved.

When does the Party Wall Act actually apply — and when doesn't it?

It's worth killing this one directly, because it comes up constantly: the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 does not apply to an ordinary timber panel fence, however it's built or whoever it belongs to. The Act only covers a "party fence wall" — a very specific structure built of brick, stone or masonry, straddling the boundary line, that isn't part of a building and doesn't support a roof. Timber panels, closeboard, metal railings and chain-link are all excluded outright. So a customer asking whether they need to "serve notice" before a garden fence replacement can be told, correctly, that they don't — that requirement only bites if the job is a masonry wall built astride the line, which is a different quote, a different trade conversation, and a genuinely different legal process.

How to price the work

UK fencing prices vary by panel type, height and region, but these are a fair starting point for 2026:

• Lap/waney-edge panels (6ft): £40–£55 each — the budget option, shortest lifespan.
• Closeboard/featherboard panels (6ft): £45–£65 each — the most commonly quoted upgrade, better wind resistance.
• Picket or palisade panels: £20–£30 each.
• Woven panels: £30–£70 each depending on weave and timber grade.
• Metal panels (railings, estate fencing): £80–£140 each.
• Composite/PVC panels: around £135 each, plus a longer maintenance-free guarantee.
• Concrete posts (6ft): £15–£20 each; timber posts (6ft): £10–£15 each — concrete costs more but won't rot at ground level.
• Blended supply-and-fit average: roughly £110–£120 per metre for a typical garden fence.
• Labour alone, on customer-supplied materials, runs £300–£400 a day, or around £50–£80 per panel.
• A full 22-metre garden fence (around 12 panels) commonly comes in around £2,000–£2,200 over about two days.

A worked example

A rear garden boundary replacement, 24 metres of closeboard fencing plus a side gate, priced as separate lines rather than one round number:

£3,585 for 24 metres of 1.8m closeboard fencing on concrete posts, comfortably within the 2m permitted development limit, plus a matching side gate. The Land Registry title plan was checked before quoting — confirmed as the customer's boundary to maintain — so there's no awkward conversation with the neighbour waiting on the other side of the job.

Five details that get fencing quotes accepted faster

• State who's actually responsible for the boundary, not just the fence line. "Title plan checked — this is your boundary to maintain" answers the one question that causes more fence disputes than the price ever does, and it does so before either of you has spent a penny.
• Give the exact height, not just "standard fence." "1.8m closeboard, within the 2m permitted development limit" is a specific, checkable claim — it reassures a customer who doesn't want an unexpected letter from the council eighteen months later.
• Separate the gate from the fence run. A gate is different hardware, different labour and sometimes a different material entirely — folding it into a per-metre fence price either overcharges the rest of the job or quietly eats your margin on the gate.
• Name the post type and spacing. "Concrete posts at 3m centres" tells a customer they're not getting the option that starts leaning in five years — spelled out on the quote, not just implied by a higher number.
• Flag conservation area or Article 4 status before ordering materials. Raising it on the quote avoids the conversation nobody wants to have after a fence has already gone up somewhere it needed consent.

The fastest way to do all of this

A single boundary run is easy enough to price on a doorstep visit. A garden with two or three different boundaries, a gate, a height check and a title-plan note that all need to add up correctly — and stay attached to the right section of fence — is exactly where a rushed verbal quote leaves a gap that surfaces the week the panels go up.

This is what QuoteRocket is for. Describe the job in plain English — "24m closeboard fence, 1.8m height, concrete posts, remove and dispose of old fence, matching side gate" — and it turns that into a branded, itemised PDF quote in under a minute, with every section, the gate and the boundary check kept separate and clearly labelled. Your customer accepts it with one tap on their phone, and an accepted quote becomes an invoice in one click — the fixed total they agreed to before a single post went in the ground.

Whichever way you produce the quote, the principle holds: confirm the boundary before you price it, keep the height inside the permitted development limit — or flag clearly that it isn't — and separate the gate from the fence run. It's the difference between a neighbour dispute waiting to happen and a job that's forgotten about within a week, because it just works.

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