How much does it cost to refurbish a house? (UK 2026)

“How much will it cost to do up this house?” is the first question every investor asks — and the honest answer is it depends, but not as vaguely as people fear. Refurbishment costs follow a fairly predictable shape once you fix three things: the level of work, the size, and the region.

The three levels

Light / cosmetic (~£400–£650/m²). Decoration, flooring, a kitchen and bathroom refresh, minor electrics and a garden tidy. The property is sound; you're making it lettable or saleable.

Medium (~£700–£1,050/m²). A new kitchen and bathroom, partial rewire, some replastering, new internal doors and joinery. More than cosmetic, short of structural.

Heavy / back-to-brick (~£1,200–£1,850/m²). A full rewire and replumb, new heating, windows, roofing repairs, damp treatment and structural alterations. Essentially everything but the shell. Use the refurbishment cost calculator to put a number on your property.

Worked example

A typical 90 m² three-bed at the medium level: 90 × ~£875/m² ≈ £79,000 before VAT, plus a 10–15% contingency. The same house at the heavy level is closer to £135,000+. Region matters too — London and the South East run roughly 18–30% above the national baseline; the North and Wales sit below it.

What actually drives the cost

• Condition you can't see. Roof, wiring, heating and damp are the big swing factors. A rewire alone is ~£4,000–£5,500 (see cost to rewire a house) and leaves plastering to make good.
• Kitchens and bathrooms. The rooms buyers and valuers judge — easy to over- or under-spec.
• Structural surprises. Removing a wall, a failing lintel, or unexpected drainage. This is exactly what provisional sums in a schedule of works are for.
• The bits people forget. Skips, scaffolding, site management, insurances, building control — the preliminaries that don't show up in a room-by-room guess.

From a guess to a number you can defend

Per-m² rates are a useful sanity check, but a lender (or your own profit margin) needs the works itemised — by trade, split into materials and labour, with the working shown. That's what turns “about eighty grand” into a costed, phased schedule you can build a deal on.