How to price a roofing job in the UK

Price roofing by the crew day, not the hour. Then add materials, scaffold and waste as separate lines. Most of a pitched roof's value is materials, so a day rate that looks healthy can hide a job that makes very little.

The other thing that separates roofing from most trades is rain. You can't bill a day you can't work, so your rate has to pay for the days you sit in the van.

What UK roofers charge

Here's what the published guides say. Checkatrade and MyBuilder sell leads, Whito compiles other people's guides, and they don't agree.

Trade2Base, which sells to the trade, also splits day rates by region, so read its June 2026 guide for your own area.

For small jobs, Whito's compiled guide gives £150 to £400 to replace one to five tiles and £200 to £600 for lead flashing round a chimney. BestBuilders gives £450 to £1,200 to re-bed a whole ridge. Use these to sense-check yourself. Don't use them to set your price.

Work out your crew day rate

Most roofing isn't one person, so I've used an owner and a mate. If you work alone on repairs, drop the mate and use the same sum.

Two roofers at the published £250 to £360 would come to £500 to £720, so £538 isn't greedy. It also shows why a crew charging £450 a day can be flat out and still short. At £450, those 190 days bring in £85,500. That's £16,690 less than the example needs.

Rain does most of the damage

The Met Office's 1991 to 2020 average for the UK is about 159 days a year with 1mm of rain or more. Not all of those stop work, and it's a UK-wide figure, but it shows why roofers can't use the same working year as a kitchen fitter. Trade2Base allows 35 to 45 lost days. The 40 above is my working assumption inside that range. Check your own diary from last year.

The mate's pay moves with the days in this table, because I've assumed you only pay your mate for days worked. Pay to keep them through wet weeks and the gap gets wider. Losing 20 days adds £41 to every remaining day.

Build the quote line by line

Show the lines you're comfortable showing, but always work them out separately. Here's a concrete tile re-roof on a three-bed semi, using the example rate.

That's about £127 per m² before VAT, against Checkatrade's £120 to £230 for plain concrete tiles, supplied and fitted. The tile price, the scaffold and the skip all come from Checkatrade's guide. The four days comes from its note that a typical three-bed takes three to four. The 10% waste and the 15% mark-up sit inside what Trade2Base suggests. Materials with mark-up come to 59% of this quote, which fits its 50 to 60%.

Slate is different. Trade2Base suggests 15% waste, and labour runs higher. Don't copy the tile sum.

Scaffold is a safety line, not a discount

HSE says almost all domestic roof work needs scaffolding with edge protection, and that on a terrace you'll need it front and back. Ladders can get you to the work, but working from one is a last resort.

So here's my opinion. Never drop the scaffold to win a job. If another quote is £1,000 lower and has no scaffold on it, say so to the customer, plainly and without slagging anyone off. "Our price includes full scaffold, because HSE says domestic roof work almost always needs it." That line sells better than a discount, and it might keep someone alive.

Check your council too, because scaffold on the road or pavement can need a licence. Somerset, for example, charges £124.60 per 28 days and wants 10 working days' notice. Other councils differ, so look up yours, ask about skips while you're there, and put any fee on the quote. In a storm week, that lead time matters.

Choose how you'll charge

A leak is the hardest thing to price, because the place water comes in often isn't the place it shows. I'd sell the first visit as "find and fix up to two hours", with a fixed fee. If the fault's bigger, you stop and quote.

Rotten decks, surprises and the quote

Citizens Advice says a quote is a fixed price and an estimate is a rough guess. It says a contractor can't charge more than a quote unless the customer asks for extra work, agrees to pay for extra work they were told about, or the contractor made a genuine mistake in the sum. That's from its Scotland page, so check it applies where you work. If no price was agreed at all, the Consumer Rights Act says the customer pays a reasonable price and no more.

This is where roofing has a trust problem. The cold caller Leicestershire warns about starts with a loose tile, and homeowners have heard how those stories end. To a nervous customer, an honest extra can sound the same unless you handle it differently.

Do three things:

1. Put a priced line on the quote for likely surprises, such as "replacing rotten decking at £X per board".
2. Stop and take a dated photo when you find something.
3. Send the photo and the price, and get a yes by text before you carry on.

Our text templates include that message.

The 14-day rule

Roofing is at the sharp end of this one. Citizens Advice's own advice to homeowners on roofing scams is that if a trader visits and you agree the work there, you've 14 days to cancel. Customers are being told this, so get it right.

There are two exceptions. Contracts of £42 or less fall outside these rules. And there's no right to cancel where the customer specifically asked you to visit for urgent repairs or maintenance. So a tarp on a storm-hit roof after they rang you is covered. Anything extra you sell on that visit, such as a new ridge, isn't, unless it's a replacement part needed for the repair.

If they accept later by phone or email, different rules may apply. Don't assume you're clear. Ask your trade association for a compliant form. This is general information, not legal advice.

Deposits

Trade2Base suggests 30 to 40% before materials are ordered. Homeowners, meanwhile, are hearing from Leicestershire Trading Standards about rogue roofers who escort people to the bank. Both make sense from where they're standing.

My view is to tie any deposit to materials you're actually ordering, say so on the quote, and take it by bank transfer or card, never cash. And don't take it before the cancellation paperwork's done.

Tiles count towards the VAT threshold

The registration line is £90,000 of taxable turnover in any 12 months, and you must also register if you expect to pass it in the next 30 days. Roofers hit it early, because the tiles and scaffold you bill for count as turnover even though you don't keep them.

In the example, the crew's labour alone comes to £102,220 at £538 for 190 days, before a single tile. So a two-person crew doing full roofs is likely to be VAT registered from the start. A sole roofer on small repairs might not be, which can give them a real edge on domestic work. If you work for other contractors, the domestic reverse charge may also apply. Ask your accountant.

David Bell, founder of Real Business Systems

David helps small UK businesses get found, answer every enquiry and keep customers coming back. We sell some of the services mentioned here, and we say so where they come up.