Bathroom Fitting Pricing Guide UK — How to Quote a Bathroom Fit and Protect Your Margin (2026)

Labour-Only vs Supply-and-Fit: Choosing the Right Model

Before you quote, you need to be clear on which model you're working to. The distinction matters because it changes your risk profile, your cash flow requirements, and your margin potential significantly.

Labour-only means the customer supplies all sanitary ware, tiles, adhesives, grout and fittings. You bring expertise and hands. The upside is simplicity: no materials procurement, no trade account management, no carrying costs while you wait to be paid. The downside is that your margin ceiling is your day rate multiplied by your days on site. You also inherit the risk of working with whatever the customer has bought — cheap sanitaryware that doesn't fit, tiles that arrive short, or a shower enclosure that is missing a component on day one.

Supply-and-fit means you source and supply everything. The bathroom is your project end-to-end. This model carries a 25–40% materials markup opportunity — real margin that sits on top of your labour rate. It also means working capital requirements: you buy tiles and sanitary ware before the customer pays you, so cash flow discipline matters. And if something goes wrong with a product, you own that problem.

For experienced fitters with established trade accounts, supply-and-fit on a curated range they know and trust is the most profitable model available. You control quality, you earn on materials, and you present a single point of accountability to the customer — which is precisely what customers with budgets to spend are looking for.

Bathroom Fitter Day Rates in 2026

A qualified bathroom fitter in the UK is charging between £200 and £350 per day for labour in 2026. London and the South East sit at the top of that range — and in central London, experienced fitters working on premium projects regularly exceed £350. Outside the capital, the Midlands, North of England and Scotland typically run 10–20% below the South East benchmark.

If you are working with a specialist tiler as a separate trade — which many bathroom fitters do on larger projects — their day rate runs on a similar scale: £180–£320 per day for an experienced tiler. Factor this into your overall project cost if you are managing subcontractors and marking up their labour.

Typical Job Timings for Bathroom Fitting Tasks (Labour Only)

These timings are realistic benchmarks for a standard bathroom of around 4–6 m² in reasonable condition. Complex layouts, awkward waste runs, structural issues or large format tiles will all extend the schedule.

The wide range on tiling reflects the single biggest variable in bathroom fitting. Subway tiles in a standard layout can be done in a day and a half. Large-format porcelain with a herringbone pattern in a shower enclosure takes three days minimum. Always clarify the tile format, layout pattern and any feature walls before committing to a fixed tiling price.

Typical Total Costs by Bathroom Type (Supply-and-Fit, 2026)

These figures include labour and materials at trade pricing with a standard markup. They reflect a bathroom fitter managing the full project — not a breakdown-only contractor or a customer-supplied materials job.

A “standard refresh” means a like-for-like suite swap with mid-market sanitary ware, ceramic tiles and no structural changes. A mid-range refurbishment includes layout changes, better-quality fittings and a full retile. Premium work involves wet room waterproofing, large-format stone or porcelain, bespoke joinery, underfloor heating and high-end sanitary ware — jobs where materials alone can exceed £5,000.

The Scope Creep Problem

Bathrooms are the most scope-creep-prone room in the house. Behind every old bath is a potential rotten floor. Beneath every set of tiles could be failed waterproofing, a compromised substrate, or walls that have never been made truly flat. Non-compliant existing plumbing — undersized waste pipes, missing isolation valves, gravity-fed hot water on a combi boiler job — adds hours you did not price.

None of these are excuses for a poor quote. They are reasons to survey before you quote, and to include contingency notes in every bathroom proposal. A sentence that reads “any rotted subfloor or structural floor repair will be quoted separately as a variation before work proceeds” takes thirty seconds to write and saves three days of argument. Always include it.

Adequate ventilation is another common discovery. Building Regulations require mechanical ventilation in bathrooms without openable windows, with a minimum extract rate of 15 l/s for intermittent fans. If the existing ventilation is non-compliant and you're doing a full refurbishment, you are responsible for leaving the room in compliance. Price this in, or note it as a separate item.

How to Structure a Bathroom Quote

A well-structured bathroom quote does two things: it shows the customer exactly what they are getting, and it gives you a defensible basis if anything changes. Break your quote into clear phases:

• Strip out and preparation — removal of existing suite, waste disposal, making surfaces ready for first fix
• First fix plumbing — waste runs, supply pipes, any alterations to existing pipework
• Waterproofing / tanking — particularly in shower areas and around baths
• Tiling — walls first, then floor; note the tile format, layout and any feature walls separately
• Sanitary ware installation — toilet, basin, bath or shower enclosure
• Second fix plumbing — connecting supplies, fitting valves, testing all joints
• Testing and commissioning — pressure test, flow test, check all fittings for leaks before sign-off

List materials separately — either as individual line items (tiles at £X per m², suite at £Y, accessories at £Z) or as a single materials total. Never absorb materials costs silently into your labour rate; it makes your labour look expensive and hides the procurement value you are adding.

State clearly what is not included. Painting and decorating after tiling is a separate trade. Electrical work — fan installation, shaver sockets, heated towel rail wiring — must be done by a Part P registered electrician unless you hold that qualification yourself. Making good plaster around new pipe runs is not automatically included. These exclusions protect you from a customer who assumes everything is covered and disputes the final bill.

The Bathroom Survey — Non-Negotiable Before You Quote

Never quote a bathroom from photos, measurements sent by a customer, or a phone description. A 30-minute survey on site saves three days of rework and prevents the kind of variation disputes that damage your reputation and your cash flow.

On your survey, check and record: room dimensions and ceiling height; existing pipework routes and conditions; hot water system type (combi, vented cylinder, unvented — this determines your shower options); waste run position and the drop available to the soil stack; floor condition (bounce test for any softness around the bath); wall condition (tap and listen for hollow areas, check for damp); access for delivery of large items like shower enclosures and baths; and the location of the nearest isolation point for supply pipes.

Photograph everything before you start work. This protects you if a customer later claims the floor was fine before you arrived, or that a wall crack was not there at the start of the job.

Materials Markup and Procurement

Your trade pricing is a competitive advantage. Customers cannot walk into Topps Tiles, Tile Giant or a bathroom distributor and buy at the same price you pay on a trade card. The markup you apply — typically 30–40% on tiles, 25–35% on sanitary ware — reflects your procurement skill, your account relationships, your cash flow risk and the logistics of getting materials to site on time.

Never pass trade pricing directly to a customer without markup. It devalues the service you are providing and leaves money on the table that is rightfully yours. If a customer asks to see your supplier invoice, decline politely. Your supply chain is your business, not theirs.

If a customer wants to supply their own tiles or sanitary ware, accept this only on your own terms. You are no longer responsible for suitability, availability or quality — get that in writing. And do not adjust your labour rate downward to compensate for the materials they are supplying. Your time on site costs the same regardless of where the tiles came from.

When to Turn Down a Bathroom Job

Not every bathroom job is worth taking. These are the situations that experience teaches you to walk away from:

• The customer wants to manage the project themselves and just needs "a plumber and a tiler separately" — this means you carry no project accountability but take all the risk when trades conflict
• The customer has already bought the cheapest possible suite from an online discount retailer and wants premium labour rates — you will spend more time working around limitations of the product than you would on quality fittings
• The scope is unclear and the customer will not commit to a survey visit before quoting — a vague scope turns into a disputed invoice
• The timeline is unrealistic — asking for a full bathroom "done in a weekend" means rushing waterproofing, skipping adequate adhesive cure times and accepting liability for every failure that follows

Turning down the wrong jobs is as important as winning the right ones. A bathroom job that runs over by two days on a tight fixed price can eliminate the margin from every other job in that month. A customer who appoints separate trades and then blames you when the tiler and the plumber conflict costs you time, legal fees and reputation damage. Your quoting process should screen these customers out before you commit a single hour to their project.