How Much Does It Cost to Tile a Bathroom? A London Tiler's Honest Guide

The honest answer first: UK industry cost guides put full bathroom tiling at roughly £900 to £2,000 in labour for a typical family bathroom, plus £400 to £1,200 for tiles and materials, and London jobs commonly land 20 to 40% above the national figures. But no two bathrooms are the same, and I’ve seen real jobs come in under and well over those bands. The only figure that means anything for your bathroom is a written quote from someone who has seen the room.

I get asked about cost more than anything else, usually in the first minute of a call. It’s a fair question. What I can do here is show you what the industry averages actually say, explain what moves a job up or down the range, and show you how to read the quotes you get back.

Key takeaways

• National cost guides put full bathroom tiling labour around £900 to £2,000; London typically runs 20 to 40% higher.
• UK trade averages for tiling labour sit at roughly £40 to £70 per m2, before preparation.
• Published tiler day rates are £150 to £250 nationally, £200 to £350 in London, but most bathrooms are priced by the job, not the day.
• Substrate condition, tile format, and layout complexity move the price more than room size does.
• A quote 30% below the others is nearly always missing preparation, adhesive quality, or both.

Stone shower with twin niches, West Wickham. Niches, pattern work, and large format tiles all sit at the top of the labour range because of the setting out and cutting involved. Bathroom tiling in West Wickham

How much to tile a bathroom: what the UK averages say

For a standard domestic bathroom (a family bathroom with a shower over bath, walls and floor fully tiled, no wet room), the published UK cost guides cluster around £900 to £2,000 for labour and £400 to £1,200 for materials depending on tile choice. For London and the South East, the same guides consistently show a premium of 20 to 40% over the national averages, and my experience of the local market matches that. I’ve written separately about why tiling costs more in London; the short version is wages, travel, parking, and the age of the housing stock.

For a wet room conversion with full tanking, a graded floor, and a linear drain, industry figures move substantially higher, because you’re paying for waterproofing and drainage work as well as tiling. The wet room vs shower tray comparison covers where that money goes.

Treat all of these numbers the same way: as a sanity check for the quotes you receive, not as a price for your bathroom. Every figure above is an attributed industry average. What your bathroom costs depends on the room, and that takes a site visit and a written quote.

Tiling cost per m2

Per-square-metre figures are the most searched and the most misleading numbers in tiling, so let’s handle them properly.

UK trade averages put tiling labour at roughly £40 to £70 per m2. Straightforward ceramic on sound walls sits at the bottom of that band. Large format porcelain, natural stone, mosaics, and pattern layouts sit at the top or above it. I’ve broken this down fully in the cost of tiling per square metre, including what the per-m2 number hides.

Materials go on top, and here the range is genuinely enormous. A mid-range rectified porcelain at 600×300 retails around £30 to £50 per square metre. A premium Italian slab at 600×1200 runs £80 to £150 and beyond. Marble and natural stone vary widely by stone and origin. Then add adhesive, grout, silicone, trims, and any tanking or levelling materials, which typically add £10 to £20 per m2 on a quality specification.

The catch with per-m2 pricing: it excludes preparation. A bathroom that needs re-boarding, levelling, or tanking can carry preparation costs that rival the tiling itself. Two bathrooms with identical square meterage can be a day’s work apart. That’s not a loophole tilers exploit; it’s the reason serious tilers won’t quote from a floor plan.

How much does a tiler cost per day?

Published industry guides put an experienced tiler’s day rate at £150 to £250 nationally, and £200 to £350 in London. Where a specific tiler sits depends on qualifications, experience, reputation, and how busy they are. What I will say is that the cheapest day rate you can find is usually the most expensive tiler over the life of the bathroom, once the failures start.

But day rates don’t tell the whole story, because most bathroom work isn’t priced by the day. It’s priced by the job, based on an assessment of how long it will take and what’s involved. A fixed price is better for both parties: you know the cost before work starts, and the tiler has no incentive to stretch the job. If you want to understand the mechanics, I’ve explained exactly how tilers price a job.

What moves the price up or down

The tile format and quality

Large format tiles take longer to lay correctly and demand a flatter substrate. Marble and natural stone need sealing and non-staining adhesive. Pattern layouts (herringbone, chevron, bordered fields, geometric floors) add 20 to 35% to the labour of a straight lay in the same tile, because every course involves setting out and cutting.

The substrate condition

A bathroom being re-tiled over sound existing tiles is quicker than one stripped back to the wall. A timber floor that needs a decoupling membrane costs more than a solid concrete slab. Walls in poor condition that need re-boarding before tiling add a full day or more. This is the single biggest reason quotes for the “same” bathroom differ, and it’s why I do site visits before quoting.

The room complexity

A square room with flat walls is the easiest bathroom to tile. A bay window, alcoves, multiple external corners, pipe boxings, or a sloped ceiling all generate cuts and detail work. Most bathrooms I see across Bromley and Beckenham are in Victorian and Edwardian houses, and those rooms almost always have at least one complicating feature.

Whether it includes a wet room

Wet rooms cost more than shower tray installations: tanking, a graded floor, a linear drain, and extra preparation time all add to the total. If you’re weighing it up, start with the wet room vs shower tray comparison and our wet room service page.

Three scenarios, in relative terms

Rather than invent precise figures, here’s how the same bathroom moves through the range:

Scenario one: sound substrate, straight lay. Existing tiles removed cleanly, walls and floor in good condition, a 300×600 porcelain in a straight lay. This is the baseline: bottom half of the industry ranges above.

Scenario two: strip back and re-board. Same room, but the old tiles bring plaster off with them and two walls need re-boarding, plus a decoupling membrane on a timber floor. Expect the labour to come in 40 to 60% above scenario one. None of this is visible in the finished room, and all of it determines whether the finished room lasts.

Scenario three: wet room with pattern work. Full tanking, graded floor, linear drain, large format walls, and a mosaic floor. This is the top of the range and beyond, and comparing its quote against a scenario one price tells you nothing. Compare like with like.

What cheap quotes usually leave out

I’ve been doing this long enough to know where corners get cut:

Skipping preparation. No decoupling membrane on timber floors. No proper tanking. No levelling before large format tiles. These savings are invisible on day one and expensive in year two, when tiles crack or water gets through.

Wrong adhesive. Standard C1 adhesive where C2 deformable is required. It holds initially and fails under bathroom conditions: steam, thermal cycling, movement.

Inadequate silicone joints. Grouting corners and perimeter junctions that should be siliconed to flex. They crack, and water follows.

Inferior materials. Cheap adhesive, grout, and silicone are fine for six months and problematic for five years.

A quote 30% below the market isn’t a bargain. It’s telling you something.

How to compare bathroom tiling quotes properly

Ignore the bottom line until you’ve compared what’s included. Ask each tiler the same four questions: what substrate preparation is included, what adhesive grade is specified, are movement joints siliconed rather than grouted, and what workmanship guarantee comes with the job. I’ve put together a full tiling quote checklist you can work through line by line.

A useful quote also requires the tiler to see the room. Anyone pricing a bathroom over the phone from “it’s a standard bathroom” is either guessing or planning to renegotiate on day one.

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The industry ranges above tell you what the market looks like. They can’t tell you what your bathroom costs, because no two rooms are the same. The way to find out is a free site visit and a written quote with no obligation: get in touch and I can usually have a written price with you the same day or within 24 hours.

Related reading: The cost of tiling per square metre · How tilers price a job · How long does bathroom tiling take? · Bathroom tiling service