New kitchen cost in the UK: 2026 prices by size and scope

A new kitchen costs £6,000 to £25,000 supplied and fitted in most UK homes in 2026. A full renovation with new flooring, tiling, plastering, plumbing and electrics runs £30,000 to £40,000 including VAT. The scope sets the price more than the room does. We give prices by size, finish and layout, where the money goes, what fitting and the common extras add, and the VAT and building rules.

New kitchen cost by size

These are 2026 prices for a new kitchen, supplied and fitted. A bigger room takes more units, more worktop and more days of fitting, so size moves the price first.

£6,000 to £25,000 covers most UK kitchens. The bands overlap because finish matters as much as floor area: a medium kitchen with stone worktops and integrated appliances can cost more than a large one fitted with budget units.

Kitchen cost by layout

Layout adds cost through the number of units and the length of worktop. These are typical full-renovation prices in London, including VAT, so they sit above the size bands. The gaps between layouts are mostly units and worktop, which cost much the same anywhere in the UK.

An island adds about £20,000 over a galley, because it brings a whole extra run of units and worktop into the room.

What a kitchen price includes: units, fitted or full renovation

Three prices for the same room can all be right and still sit £30,000 apart, because each one prices a different job. Before comparing any figure, check which of these it is.

A full renovation is a bigger job than a new kitchen. It adds the floor, the tiling, new lighting, plastering and making good to the units and the fitting, which is why a typical one lands near £34,400 including VAT.

Two quotes for the same medium kitchen can differ by several thousand pounds for the same reason. One includes the floor, the tiles and the electrics, and the other leaves them for you to arrange.

Budget, mid-range and premium kitchen prices

The finish is the other half of the price. These bands price the kitchen by its specification: the units, the worktop material and the appliances.

The budget band is the kitchen delivered, before anyone fits it. At the bottom of that band, IKEA lists an 11 m² METOD kitchen at £2,440 with the worktops, wall panels, lighting and appliances included, and installation priced separately.

Kitchen unit prices by supplier

The cabinets for the same 8-unit kitchen run from a few hundred pounds to five figures, before worktops, appliances or fitting.

A small galley of around 10 m² can start from about £600 for 8 cabinets. A 30 m² kitchen needing about 20 units runs to £7,000 or more for the units alone. Flat-pack units arrive unassembled, so either you build them or the fitter does, at fitting rates.

Where the money goes in a new kitchen

The units are the biggest single line, but they come to only about a third of a finished kitchen. This is how a typical total splits.

Average spend on each part of a new kitchen runs to £4,477 on cabinets, £2,985 on worktops, £2,653 on flooring and £1,553 on appliances, with £681 on a splashback and £569 on lighting. Where an island goes in, it averages £5,276 on its own, more than the average spend on cabinets.

Flooring is the part people most often wish they had spent more on, ahead of storage and the cabinets themselves. 40% spend less than £1,000 on it.

Worktop and flooring prices

Worktops are priced by the linear metre and flooring by the square metre, so both follow the size of the room. These are starting prices for the material, before cutting and fitting.

A stone worktop is templated once the base units are in, then cut to fit, and the kitchen waits about a week for it. Laminate, wood and stone are all priced by the metre, so an island or a long run of units adds worktop cost as well as cabinet cost.

Kitchen fitting cost: supply only or supplied and fitted

Fitting a kitchen you have bought yourself costs £1,200 to £3,500 in labour alone. Fit-only labour prices follow the size of the kitchen and the number of trades it needs, and a kitchen fitter charges £180 to £300 a day, or more than £300 in London.

A fitter builds and hangs the units, fits the worktops and sets up the appliances, but cannot wire anything into the mains unless they are also a qualified electrician. A plumber connects the sink and the dishwasher, and a gas hob needs a Gas Safe registered engineer.

Supplied and fitted puts one firm in charge of the measure, the order and the fit, so a missing panel or a wrong-sized unit is its problem rather than yours. If you buy from a retailer and bring your own fitter, check that the choice does not affect the units' guarantee.

Most fitters take the old kitchen out as part of the job. Many dispose of the old carcasses free, and some charge a small fee, so ask before you compare fitting prices.

Extra costs a kitchen quote leaves out

The rip-out is where the extras show up. These four turn up most often once the old units come off the walls, and each is priced on top of the kitchen.

Walls that are stained or crumbling behind the old units point to damp treatment or tanking, and plaster that comes away with the old tiles means replastering before the new units go up.

Old wiring is the other common find. An electrical inspection before the rip-out shows whether the kitchen circuits need replacing, at £864 to £1,836, or whether the fuse box needs upgrading, at £1,102 to £2,570.

Three less common extras apply only to some kitchens:

• Asbestos survey or removal: £1,003 to £1,814, and worth a survey before the rip-out in any house built before 2000.
• Floor levelling or screed: £681 to £2,275, when the old floor is uneven under the new units or the new flooring needs a flat base.
• Structural engineer: £811 to £7,020, when a wall comes down to open the kitchen up, with a building control application on top.

Before a wall comes out, find out whether it is load-bearing. That answer decides whether the engineer and the building control application apply at all.

Kitchen costs in London and the rest of the UK

For a full renovation, the middle half of projects cost £30,152 to £40,290 at the UK level, including VAT, and £32,062 to £43,108 in London.

A typical London kitchen renovation costs about £36,600, around £2,200 more than the UK figure of £34,400. London labour costs well above the UK average, but labour, plumbing, electrics and plastering make up only about 43% of a kitchen. The other 57%, the units, worktops, appliances and flooring, costs much the same wherever it is fitted.

So a London quote for a full kitchen should run about 6% above the same job at the UK average. The cheapest regions sit further below the UK average than that, so a London-level price there is worth a second quote. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as in England, the labour share is the part of a kitchen price that follows local rates.

VAT on a new kitchen

VAT is charged at 20% on kitchen work in a lived-in home, on the labour and on the units the firm supplies. Check whether a quote includes it: £15,000 plus VAT is £18,000.

Under HMRC's VAT Notice 708, which covers the whole UK, renovating a home that has been empty for at least 2 years qualifies for the reduced 5% rate. Fitted kitchen units count as building materials, so they get 5% when the builder supplies them, but most electrical appliances stay at 20% whatever the rest of the job is charged.

Units you buy yourself from a retailer are charged at 20% even on a 5% job, and there is no way to claim the difference back. On an empty home, that makes it cheaper to have the builder supply them.

Building regulations, planning and gas for a new kitchen

In England, a like-for-like kitchen refit rarely needs building regulations approval. Adding sockets and lights, changing existing circuits and replacing a sink are all exempt, but replacing a fuse box needs approval, and so does installing a heating system or adding a radiator.

An electrician registered with a competent person scheme certifies their own work and tells the council for you, so there is no separate application to building control. The certificate should reach you within 8 weeks of the work finishing.

Taking out a wall is a different matter. A load-bearing wall needs a structural engineer's design and a building control application before it comes down.

A new kitchen fitted inside the existing room needs no planning application. Planning comes in when the work changes the outside of the house, as an extension does, or when the house is listed or in a conservation area.

Moving or connecting a gas hob or cooker is gas work. Under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, anyone employed to work on gas appliances in a home must be a Gas Safe registered engineer and competent in that area of gas work. Each engineer's competencies are listed on the back of their Gas Safe ID card, so check that cookers are on it.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

The approval list above is England's. Wales has its own Approved Documents, Scotland issues building warrants rather than building regulations approval, and Northern Ireland runs separate building control. Ask the council which kitchen work needs approval before any rewiring or wall removal starts.

How long a new kitchen takes

Fitting a kitchen takes days. The whole job, from rip-out to decorating, takes weeks, and bespoke units add lead time before anyone arrives.

On site, the work runs in this order:

1. The old kitchen comes out, and the walls and floor are checked.
2. First fix: new pipes and cables go in while the walls are open.
3. Plastering, and any floor levelling.
4. The flooring, then the base and wall units.
5. The worktops, templated first and cut to fit if they are stone.
6. Second fix: the sink, taps, appliances, sockets and lights are connected.
7. Splashbacks or tiles, then decoration.

A new kitchen as part of an extension or renovation

Many new kitchens go into new space, from a side return extension on a terrace to a single-storey rear extension. The build is priced on its own, and the kitchen fitted inside it costs what the size bands above say, on top.

If the kitchen is one room in the cost of renovating a whole house, it goes in late. Rewiring, pipework and plastering come first, and the kitchen is fitted at second fix, so no new unit has to come off the wall to reach a cable.

How much to budget for a new kitchen

A kitchen budget of 5 to 10% of the home's value keeps the spend in line with the house: £12,500 to £25,000 on a £250,000 home. We would pick the size band first, move within it for the finish, then hold the extras money back until the old kitchen is out and the walls and floor have been seen.

Put quotes side by side, line by line. A quote with no split between supply and labour, no line for plumbing or electrics, or a total well below the size band for your room has left something out, and the missing work comes back as an extra once the job starts.