What does a kitchen renovation cost in London?

VAT: kitchen work in an existing home is standard-rated at 20%. Four of the six London guides behind these ranges quote with VAT included and one without, so a quote without VAT will look cheaper than these brackets by a fifth. A reduced 5% rate applies only in narrow cases, such as a home empty for two years or more.

• Whether the sink or hob moves

  adds about £1,000–£5,000 — Keeping the sink and hob where they are keeps the waste, water and gas runs short. Moving them means lifting floors and re-routing plumbing, gas and electrics, which four London guides put at £1,000–£5,000 in total. Moving the gas point alone is the smaller part; the drainage is what costs.

• Taking out a structural wall

  adds about £4,000–£15,000 — Opening the kitchen into the dining room needs a structural engineer's design, a steel, temporary works and Building Regulations sign-off. London guides put a single through-opening at £4,000–£8,000 and an open-plan rebuild with several beams at £8,000–£15,000 or more. It is a building job that runs before the kitchen, not an add-on to it.

• Worktop material

  adds £1,500–£5,000, up to £8,000 — Laminate to solid wood, quartz or granite is a £1,500–£5,000 uplift in the London guides, and porcelain runs to £7,000 and marble to £8,000. Stone also fixes the programme, because nothing can be templated until the units are in.

• Electrical scope

  £900–£1,500, or £1,500–£4,000 for a rewire — A kitchen almost always needs new circuits and a check of the consumer unit, which London guides price at £900–£1,500. Older London houses frequently need the kitchen zone rewired rather than extended, at £1,500–£4,000, and that work is notifiable under Part P.

• Access and parking

  shows up in labour hours — A third-floor flat with no lift, a controlled parking zone and a skip on a suspended bay is a materially different job from a house with a driveway. It does not change the materials; it changes how many hours the same crew spends carrying, protecting and waiting for deliveries.

• What is behind the plaster

  why a contingency is not optional — Victorian and Edwardian stock in London routinely hides failed damp courses, undersized joists under a tiled floor and cloth-covered wiring. None of it appears on a quote written from photographs, and all of it is found in the first two days on site.

• Skips and parking bay suspensions

  £300–£425 per skip

  An 8-yard builder's skip in London, before the borough's road permit of £30–£120. Inner London boroughs also charge to suspend a parking bay for the skip or for deliveries: an administration fee plus a daily rate, which needs applying for in advance.

• Building control for a structural opening

  £360–£515

  Payable where a wall comes out, drainage moves or electrical work is notifiable and not self-certified. The local-authority charge for a structural opening or small works in the three London boroughs whose schedules we read (Hillingdon, Havering and Redbridge) is £360–£515 including VAT.

• Structural engineer's calculations

  £450–£800

  A single beam calculation with a site visit, from London practices. Building control will not accept the steel without it, and the fabricator needs it to cut the beam, so it sits at the start of the programme rather than the end.

• Making good beyond the kitchen

  priced by the room, not the guide

  Floors that ran through into the hall, plaster damaged by a wall removal and the redecoration of the adjoining room are not in the kitchen ranges. Agree in writing which rooms the quote makes good, and to what standard.

• A contingency

  budget for it, spend it rarely

  On a property over eighty years old the usual advice is a contingency of around a tenth of the contract value. It is not padding; it is the money that stops a discovery under the floor becoming a stopped site.