Fitting a new kitchen is the most popular home renovation, according to a new survey, which costs around £2,000 on average.
The survey from bathroom specialists Drench shows what you could expect to pay for certain home repairs and for key tasks associated with renovating a house. It also highlights how hourly rates for tradespeople vary across the UK.
Drench surveyed trade professionals across the UK, including plumbers, electricians, painters and decorators, carpenters and joiners, gardeners and builders to reveal the most common household jobs they perform.
Kitchen is Most Popular Home Renovation
The most popular renovation was fitting a new kitchen. Carpenters and joiners reported that this task took them around 70 hours on average, and the average cost of labour was £30 per hour, so you’d expect to pay around £2,100 (excluding materials).
(MORE: 10 Essential Features for a New Kitchen)
Meanwhile, builders reported that garage conversions were the most popular job within their trade. On average, this could set you back £1,085 for labour due to a 35-hour completion time and average cost per hour of £31.
Repair Costs
The two most common repairs were tap and toilet repairs, and fixing boiler problems.
Drench calculated that the average cost of a plumber in the UK is £40 per hour, and it takes around one hour to fix taps and toilets, and four hours to repair a boiler.
Replacing lights and light fittings was among the other popular repair and maintenance jobs, at an average total labour cost of £68 (two hours to fix at £34 per hour).
Costs Vary Nationwide
Notably, Drench discovered that renovation and repairs costs differ significantly depending on where you live in the UK. For example, the most expensive tradesperson can be found in Birmingham at £41 per hour — which is almost double that of the cheapest city, Belfast, at £22 per hour.
Belfast is one of the cheapest cities to hire tradespeople in the UK (the survey only covered 15 cities), and house prices in Northern Ireland are 40% cheaper than the rest of the UK.
Meanwhile, those living in Coventry and Leicester will find it cheaper to hire a gardener, where the average cost of £17 per hour is £37 cheaper than the national average.
Of the 15 cities surveyed, these are the average tradesperson costs across the UK:
- Belfast - £22
- Sheffield - £24
- Leicester / Coventry - £25
- Cardiff / Nottingham - £26
- Stoke-on-Trent / Liverpool - £27
- Edinburgh / Bristol - £28
- Glasgow - £29
- Manchester - £30
- Leeds - £31
- London - £40
- Birmingham - £41
