Good Houses
Bathroom renovation cost calculator
Step 1 of 3
Where's the bathroom?
A postcode gives you figures for your actual area. You can also skip this and get a regional estimate.
A bathroom is a more personal room than most, and the figure above can only describe an average one. Size, the materials you pick, and whether the work needs plumbing moved are what separate one bathroom from another.
There is a way to narrow it down yourself, and it is worth an evening. Price the actual things you want: the cabinet, the basin, the toilet, and the bath or shower enclosure, from UK retailers you would genuinely buy from. Then measure the area you are tiling and price the tiles you like by the square metre. That gives you the cost of your own taste, which is the part no calculator can guess, and you can set it against the figure above to see where you sit.
How we price a bathroom
As with kitchens, bathrooms are priced by specification first (budget, mid, high or premium), because the difference between a functional replacement and a premium room is far larger than the difference in floor area.
Labour is included in those figures, so the local adjustment applies to the labour share only. The extras that genuinely move the price are added where you need them: converting to a wet room, underfloor heating, moving the soil pipe, or replacing the window.
The result is always a range, never a single figure. A precise number would be a false promise, because two builders quoting the same job honestly can land a long way apart. Everything is rounded rather than shown to the pound, for the same reason.
Every figure behind this comes from a table we maintain by hand and review on a schedule. The date of the last review is shown on this page, so you can judge how current it is rather than take our word for it.
What the bathroom figure covers
The figure covers:
- Sanitaryware, tiling, and fitting at the specification level you chose
- Converting to a wet room, where selected
- Underfloor heating, where selected
- Moving the soil pipe, where the new layout needs it
- Replacing the window, where selected
What the bathroom figure leaves out
Not in the figure:
- Structural work to the floor if it will not take the load of a stone or large-format tile
- Repairs to joists or subfloor found once the old bathroom is out, common in older houses
- Upgrading the water supply or boiler if the pressure will not run the shower you have chosen
- Extraction ducting if there is currently none
- Redecorating the landing or the room below after a leak is discovered
Why bathroom fitting costs more in some regions
Labour is the part of a bathroom renovation that moves most by region, so it is the part we adjust. Every area carries a labour multiplier, and the calculator applies it to the labour element rather than to the whole figure, because materials cost broadly the same everywhere, and scaling them by region would overstate the difference.
Where we hold published data for your area, that area's own multiplier is used. Where we do not, the calculator falls back to the figure for your region and the page says so. It will never quietly borrow a nearby city's numbers and present them as local. A London figure on a Cumbrian postcode is worse than no figure at all.
Taking this to bathroom fitters
Take it to real quotes, and treat it as the shape of the answer rather than the answer. Get three written quotes from bathroom fitters and general builders, and compare what each one includes before you compare the totals, because the cheapest number on the page is often the one leaving the most out.
If a quote comes in below our range, that usually means a newer business building a reputation, or work that cuts corners. Above it usually means limited local supply, or a firm with higher overheads. Both can be the right choice. The question worth asking is what is included, not why the number differs.
Worth asking every firm you speak to:
- Is this supply and fit, or fitting only?
- What is the tiling allowance per square metre?
- Will my water pressure run this shower, and have you checked?
- What happens if the floor needs strengthening?
- Is waste and disposal included?
Common questions
Is a second bathroom worth adding?
Usually more than upgrading the one you have, particularly in a house with three or more bedrooms. The calculator estimates the value added at your area's prices so you can compare rather than guess.
Why is moving the toilet expensive?
Because it means moving the soil pipe, and that is drainage work rather than bathroom work. It is one of the few decisions in a bathroom that changes the price substantially, which is why it is a separate question here.
Is this a quote?
No. It is an estimate built from typical costs, and no contractor is bound by it. Use it to know whether a quote you have been given is roughly where it should be, and to walk into that conversation knowing what questions to ask.
Why do you show a range instead of one number?
Because one number would be misleading. The answer to "what will this cost" is a range, and where you land inside it depends on your property, your area and who you hire. Any tool giving you a single figure to the pound is telling you something it cannot know.
Do you save what I type in?
No. The calculation runs and the answers are discarded. Nothing is written down unless you explicitly ask us to email or save a result. We do not build a profile from calculator use.
How current are the figures?
The date of the last review is shown on this page. The costs behind the calculator are maintained by hand rather than scraped, and reviewed on a schedule.