How much does a plasterer charge? Day rates and room prices

A plasterer charges £150 to £250 a day in 2026 working alone, and £250 to £350 in London. Skimming an average 4m × 3m bedroom costs £450 to £680, and boarding and skimming it costs £720 to £1,200. We give day rates by region, room and per m² prices, skim against replaster, whole-house costs, the extras that move a quote, how long the work takes and when building control gets involved.

Plasterer day rates in 2026

A plasterer charges £150 to £250 a day in most of the UK in 2026 working alone. With a labourer mixing, carrying and clearing up, the rate for the pair rises to £250 to £380 outside London, and they cover more wall in the day.

A plasterer in London charges £250 to £350 a day working alone, £100 to £160 a day more than in the North of England and Wales. On renovation work, about £300 a day is a common figure.

Rural and remote jobs carry a 15 to 20% uplift or a minimum charge, because travel eats into the working day. Plasterers commonly book 4 to 10 weeks ahead in 2026, so leave that much time between accepting a quote and the start date.

A day rate is how plasterers price small repairs and open-ended work. A room, a ceiling or a whole house is usually quoted as a fixed price, worked out from the area and the method.

Cost to plaster a room

Skimming a room costs £340 to £1,070 in 2026, depending on its size. These prices are for a skim over existing plaster that is still sound. Stripping wallpaper, hacking off blown plaster and boarding are all extra.

A kitchen costs more to skim than a bedroom of the same 4m × 3m, at £505 to £785 against £450 to £680, because there is more to work around. A hallway and landing is awkward rather than big: 10 to 15 m² costs £350 to £750, with the stairwell to reach.

Where the old plaster is past saving, boarding and skimming an average room costs £720 to £1,200. Room prices are UK-wide, and in London and the South East job prices run 20 to 30% higher. Plasterers differ on whether a room price includes the ceiling, so ask before comparing two quotes.

Replastering after a rewire or a new kitchen

Other work often leaves plastering behind it. After a full rewire, filling the chases, plastering and redecorating usually adds £500 to £2,000 or more, priced apart from the electrics. Replastering on a kitchen renovation typically costs £2,439 including VAT, and usually £1,469 to £3,293, because old plaster often comes away with the tiles and units.

Plastering cost per square metre

A skim costs £10 to £18 per m² in 2026, and plasterboard with a skim £18 to £30. Pricing by the m² is the fairest way to compare two quotes for the same walls, because it takes out the difference in how each plasterer sizes up a room.

Ceilings cost 15 to 20% more per m² than walls, because the work is overhead and slower. Small jobs carry a minimum instead: a patch under 1 m² costs £80 to £150 and takes 1 to 2 hours.

Working out your own m²

Add up the length of every wall and multiply by the ceiling height, then take off about 3 m² for a door and a window. The ceiling is the room's length times its width.

An average 4m × 3m bedroom with a 2.4m ceiling has about 30 m² of wall once the door and window come off, and a 12 m² ceiling. At £10 to £18 per m², the walls cost £300 to £540 to skim. The ceiling, at 15 to 20% more per m², adds about £140 to £260.

Skim or full replaster: which your walls need

A skim is cheaper, as long as the plaster underneath is sound. It is a thin finishing coat over what is already there, so it cannot fix plaster that has come away from the wall behind it.

Tap the wall. Plaster that sounds hollow, bulges or crumbles has blown, and a skim over it cracks or comes off with it. Removing blown patches costs £50 to £150, and a wall that is mostly blown gets hacked off and boarded or replastered.

Which method a wall needs:

• Skim: sound plaster with cracks, dents, old filler or a rough surface, including walls just stripped of wallpaper.
• Board and skim: walls too damaged to patch, new stud walls, and cracked or sagging ceilings, at £18 to £30 per m².
• Two-coat plaster: bare brick or block, such as a wall hacked back to the masonry, at £22 to £35 per m².
• Lath and plaster repair: period walls where the laths are sound and worth keeping, at £25 to £40 per m².
• Renovating plaster: walls that have had damp treatment and need a damp-resistant coat.

Plaster spoiled by damp goes back on only once the cause is fixed. After rising damp treatment, walls are often replastered in a damp-resistant renovating plaster, at £18 to £28 a 25kg bag against £8 to £11 for standard Multi-Finish.

Cost to plaster a whole house

Skimming a 3-bed semi throughout costs £3,000 to £4,240 in 2026, for about 230 m² of plaster. Boarding and skimming the same house costs £4,700 to £6,900.

A whole house works out cheaper per room than the same rooms booked one at a time. Whole-house prices run 10 to 15% below room-by-room rates, and booking several rooms together saves 10 to 20%, because the plasterer sets up once.

Replastering is one of the smaller lines in the cost of a full renovation, but it has a fixed place in the order of works. It goes on after first fix, once the new cables and pipes are in, and before second fix and the decorating. We would put the skip and the Artex test in the budget from the start, because both are needed before the first coat goes on.

Ceilings, Artex and coving

Skimming a ceiling on its own costs £150 to £400 in 2026. A failed lath and plaster ceiling costs £35 to £55 per m² to replace, which on a 12 m² bedroom ceiling comes to £420 to £660.

Where a leak from the floor above has soaked a plasterboard ceiling, replacing the damaged boards costs £50 to £150 per board area before the new skim goes on.

Artex and asbestos

The Health and Safety Executive lists textured coatings such as Artex among the places asbestos is found in buildings. Work on them is classed as low risk and can be done by non-licensed workers, as long as they are trained to recognise asbestos and work with it safely.

Asbestos is a real risk in anything built before 2000, so Artex in an older home is tested before anyone sands, scrapes or drills it. A test costs £50 to £350.

Once the test comes back clear, there are two routes. Skimming over the Artex costs £300 to £500 a room. Taking it down with the ceiling boards and reboarding costs £500 to £700 a room, and per m², Artex removal with a skim is priced at £15 to £25.

Coving

Coving costs £10 to £25 per linear metre fitted in 2026. A room with 16 m of plain coving and 4 corners costs £200 to £320 fitted, close to the price of skimming the ceiling itself.

What makes one plastering quote dearer than another

Plastering is mostly labour. The materials for skimming a room cost £30 to £60, against £450 to £680 for the job, so the gap between two quotes is mostly time. These are the lines that move it:

• Preparation. Removing blown plaster adds £50 to £150. Stripping wallpaper costs £1 to £3 per m² if the plasterer does it, or £50 to £150 for a decorator beforehand.
• Method. Board and skim costs £18 to £30 per m² against £10 to £18 for a skim, and two-coat work on bare brick runs to £35.
• Ceilings. Overhead work costs 15 to 20% more per m² than the walls.
• Access. Outside render needs scaffolding, which adds £800 to £2,000 on a semi, on top of £40 to £65 per m² for sand and cement render.
• Timing. A start within a week adds 15 to 30%, and evening or weekend work 25 to 50%. November to February rates run 10 to 20% lower, but plaster takes 50 to 100% longer to dry.
• Materials. A 25kg bag of Multi-Finish costs £8 to £11. Plasterers commonly add 10 to 20% to materials they buy, and allow 10 to 15% for waste on a domestic skim.
• Waste. A skip costs £150 to £300 once old plaster comes off the walls.
• VAT. A plasterer has to register for VAT once taxable turnover passes £90,000 over the last 12 months, and a registered plasterer adds 20%. £300 a day including VAT is £250 before it.

What a written plastering quote should include

A written quote names the method for each wall and ceiling, not just the room. 'Plaster the bedroom' can mean a £450 skim or a £1,200 board and skim, and both prices can be fair for the job each plasterer saw.

Paying a plasterer

For a room or two, expect a deposit of 30 to 50% and the rest on completion. Larger jobs are often paid in stages, such as 25% at the start, 50% partway through and 25% at the end. Never pay more than 50% up front.

Before the final payment, hold a torch flat against each wall. Light from the side shows ridges, trowel marks and hollows that an overhead light hides.

How long plastering takes

A plasterer skims an average room in 6 to 8 hours, so a room can be plastered in a day. Board and skim takes 1.5 to 2 days for the same room. A whole house takes 5 to 7 days to skim, or 10 to 14 days to board and skim.

How long fresh plaster takes to dry depends on the coat, the room and the season. A skim over new board firms up in 24 to 48 hours, two-coat work needs at least 5 to 10 days, and three-coat work on brick takes 2 to 4 weeks. In winter, allow 50 to 100% longer.

Book a decorator to follow on after the drying time, not the day the plasterer leaves. New plaster takes a thinned mist coat first, and after a full replaster, allow 4 to 6 weeks before painting.

Does replastering need building regulations approval?

Skimming a room or patching plaster is repair work, and in England most repair, replacement and maintenance work is exempt from building regulations approval. Outside walls are the exception to watch.

Outside walls count as thermal elements, alongside roofs and floors. In England, significant changes to thermal elements normally need building regulations approval, and a renovated element should be upgraded to the Approved Document standard where it is cost effective to do so.

So stripping an outside wall back to the brick and replastering it, or re-rendering most of an outside wall, can need approval where a skim does not. Ask the council's building control team before the old plaster comes off, because an upgrade adds insulation to the job and to the price.

In Scotland, replacing lining or rendering with material of the same general type, inside or out, needs no building warrant. The work still has to comply, to a standard no worse than what it replaces.

Wales has its own Approved Documents and Northern Ireland runs separate building regulations, so in either nation the council's building control team is the one to ask before an outside wall is stripped.

Hiring a plasterer or doing it yourself

Doing it yourself saves the labour, which is most of the price, and the tools and materials for one room cost less than the labour they replace.

The catch is time and finish. Finishing plaster gives 30 to 45 minutes to work once it is mixed, and a beginner takes 15 to 25 hours over a room a plasterer skims in 6 to 8.

• DIY suits: a small patch, or a wall in a garage, loft or cupboard where the finish matters less.
• Hire a plasterer for: ceilings, whole rooms you will paint, and any wall facing a window, where side light shows every ridge.