How much does a bathroom renovation cost in London?

At the bottom of the published London range, yes, if the layout stays exactly where it is, the suite is a straightforward replacement and the tiling is modest. The like-for-like row runs £5,000–£8,000, and one guide's basic figure starts below that. What £5,000 does not cover is moving the WC, a wet room floor, or anything found behind the old tiles, so keep a contingency alongside it rather than inside it.

For most family bathrooms in London, yes. It sits inside the £8,000–£14,000 range the guides give for a renovation with a new layout, and comfortably above the like-for-like bracket, so it buys a moved basin or shower, mid-range sanitaryware and full tiling to the wet area. It gets tight when a wet room floor, a moved soil stack or high-end tiles are added, which is where the top of the range comes from.

Start from the type of job rather than the room size. A like-for-like refit is £5,000–£8,000 in the London guides, a renovation with a new layout £8,000–£14,000, a wet room £6,000–£16,000 and a new en-suite £6,000–£13,000. Then add whatever the range excludes: the suite and tiles if the quote is labour only, VAT if the quote is without it, borough charges for a skip, and a contingency for the age of the house.

The labour, and within it the wet work: tanking, tiling and the plumbing that has to be right before anything is covered up. Moving drainage is the single item that shifts a job between brackets, and a wet room floor built to falls is the next. The suite itself is rarely the biggest line unless it is chosen to be, which is why a cheaper suite saves less than people hope.

Less than a large one, but not proportionally, because every bathroom needs the same trades in the same order however small it is. A compact WC, basin and shower room with the layout kept sits at the lower end of the £5,000–£8,000 like-for-like range; move the WC or add a wet room floor and it behaves like any other bathroom. Small rooms also cost more per tile, because of the cutting.

Published London figures run from £6,000 to £16,000, a wider spread than any other bathroom type, because the scope varies with the floor. A concrete floor takes a former and a screed to falls; a timber floor needs new decking or a tray system and full tanking, and the drainage often has to be re-routed to reach a gully. The finish drives the top end: large-format porcelain and a frameless screen cost more than a standard tray.

Sometimes on paper, rarely once the scope is compared. A retailer's installation price usually covers fitting the suite they sold you into a room that is already prepared, with strip-out, plumbing alterations, tanking, tiling, electrics and making good priced as extras or excluded. A builder's figure for the same room includes them. Compare the two on the full written scope, not the headline, and ask both who is responsible if a leak appears later.

Not for replacing a suite in the same positions. You do for new drainage or a moved soil connection, for a bathroom in a room that was not one, for new electrical circuits, for a new extractor where there was no ventilation, and for structural work such as a new opening (Planning Portal, kitchens and bathrooms, checked September 2026). A registered electrician can self-certify the electrics under a competent person scheme; for the rest, your borough's building control team confirms what is notifiable and issues the completion certificate a buyer asks for.

Some may and some do not, which is why they are brackets. Bathroom work in an existing home is standard-rated at 20% (gov.uk, VAT for builders, checked September 2026), and of the four London guides behind these ranges only one states that its figures exclude VAT; the rest do not say either way. A fitter who is not VAT-registered will not charge it, which explains some of the lower quotes you will see. Ask for the VAT position in writing on every quote.

From London bathroom cost guides published in 2026 by TrustBuilt Projects, Buildaway, All Well Property Services and Albert Construction, with TB&D Construction's en-suite allowance used for the en-suite row. For each type we took the median of the published lows and of the highs and rounded to the nearest five hundred pounds. Borough charges are from Wandsworth's and Hackney's own pages and the boroughs' building control schedules. They are market ranges, not MO Team quotes.