What does a London
kitchen actually cost?
Galley, standard, kitchen-diner or open-plan — priced by size and by finish, from the same engine that writes our estimates. Cabinetry is about seventy per cent of it, so we show that first rather than last.
- Every figure on this page is produced by the same room-costing engine as our calculator and our written estimates. Nothing here is typed in by hand.
- Outer-London base rate, at the finish grade named in each row. Works and VAT are shown separately, and nothing else is added — no separate line for overheads, no separate line for contingency.
- Cabinetry is built in our own workshop by Selection.Works, so the figures are supply and fit by one team rather than a fitted price plus a fitter.
- Appliances are yours to choose and are not in these figures. The install of them is — see the rate table.
Four kitchens, four scopes, four prices.
These are the works, cabinetry included: strip-out, plastering, electrics, plumbing, heating, flooring, splashback, the kitchen itself and second-fix joinery. Appliances are not in them — you choose those, and we install them.
| Room | Works ex VAT | VAT | Total | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Galley kitchenabout 8 m² | £18,586 | £3,717 | £22,303 | A single run or a narrow two-run kitchen, replaced in place. Services stay roughly where they are, which is the single biggest cost saving available in a kitchen. |
| Standard kitchenabout 12 m² | £20,629 | £4,126 | £24,755 | An L or U layout with a full appliance set. The commonest London kitchen replacement, and the size at which a peninsula starts to be worth the worktop. |
| Kitchen-dinerabout 18 m² | £28,015 | £5,603 | £33,617 | Kitchen and dining in one room, with an island. The island is not just more cabinetry — it is services in the floor, which is why it moves the figure more than its frontage suggests. |
| Open-plan kitchen / livingabout 28 m² | £42,105 | £8,421 | £50,526 | The room an extension is usually built to create. Most of the extra cost over a kitchen-diner is floor area, lighting design and the joinery that a room this visible attracts. |
Works only. Sanitaryware, tiles, brassware, worktops and appliances are carried as a provisional sum against your own selections — see what is subject to final design, below. Splitting them out is the only honest way to publish a room price, because the fittings are the line you control and the one that moves most between two otherwise identical quotes.
The same kitchen, three finish grades.
Same room, same layout, same services. What moves is the door style, the worktop and the lighting — and on a kitchen that is where most of the money is, which makes this the most useful table on the page.
Shaker or slab doors in a painted finish, laminate or timber worktop, appliances fitted where the services already are, splashback tiling only.
Shaker or handleless cabinetry from our own workshop, quartz worktop, integrated appliance set, undercabinet lighting, services moved to suit the layout.
In-frame or handleless cabinetry, marble or sintered worktop with a matching upstand, island with services in the floor, downdraft extraction, designed lighting scheme.
The same job at 12 m², three finish grades. Everything structural is identical across all three — what changes is what you touch, stand on and look at. It is the cheapest lever you have, and the one most quotes never show you.
Every line in a 12 m² kitchen.
Largest line first, which puts cabinetry at the top by a distance. Publishing it this way makes the rest of the page honest: there is no clever saving in the flooring that changes a kitchen budget, and pretending otherwise wastes your time.
| Stage | Ex VAT | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shaker kitchen with quartz worktopKitchen | £14,500 | 70.3% | |
| Engineered timber (plank)Flooring | £1,140 | 5.5% | |
| Strip-out of existing finishesStrip-out | £1,020 | 4.9% | |
| HeatingHeating | £816 | 4.0% | |
| Electrical 2nd fixElectrical | £696 | 3.4% | |
| Skirting, architrave, internal doors2nd fix | £660 | 3.2% | |
| Porcelain tiling, standard, splashback onlyTiling | £621 | 3.0% | |
| Plumbing 1st + 2nd fixPlumbing | £456 | 2.2% | |
| Skim and bonding plasterPlaster | £384 | 1.9% | |
| New plasterboard ceilingCeilings | £336 | 1.6% |
This is the same stage allocation our written estimates are built from, not a set of percentages written for a web page. Every rate above is all-in: site set-up, supervision and the risk allowance sit inside the rate rather than arriving as a separate line at the bottom, and nothing is added after this except VAT.
Every upgrade, priced, with the trade-off named.
Each figure is the same kitchen priced twice — once with the choice and once without. The laminate worktop is in the list because it is a genuine saving, and the note under it is why we do not recommend it.
| Choice | Effect inc VAT | The trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Islandinstead of perimeter runs only | +£3,132 | Not just cabinetry — power, water and often extraction routed through the floor slab. |
| In-frame cabinetryinstead of shaker doors | +£5,220 | Every door hung inside a frame to a tighter tolerance. The most joinery-intensive door style we build. |
| Marble worktopinstead of quartz | +£7,830 | Beautiful, porous and it will patinate. We say so before you choose it, not after. |
| Sintered stone worktopinstead of quartz | +£4,350 | Heat and stain resistant, and it takes a mitred edge. The usual answer where marble is wanted but not practical. |
| Laminate worktop instead of quartzinstead of quartz | −£7,830 | A genuine saving, and the one most people regret. Flagged here as an option, not a recommendation. |
| Herringbone floorinstead of plank-laid engineered timber | +£410 | Same board, roughly a third more labour and more waste at the perimeter. |
| Designed lighting schemeinstead of standard downlights | +£459 | Task, ambient and scene control. In an open-plan room it does more for the space than the cabinetry does. |
Each figure is the same room priced twice — once with the choice and once without — so it is the real effect at this room size, not a percentage that happens to be true of some other room.
What is always in, and what depends on your kitchen.
The rates we price with, at the unit we price them in. Appliance installation is per appliance and a standard integrated set is five to seven of them — a line that is quietly missing from a surprising number of quotes.
Always in the job
These are not add-ons. They are in every figure quoted above, and they are listed so you can check whether a cheaper quote has left one out.
| Item | Rate inc VAT | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen supply and install | £300per linear m | Cabinetry built in our own workshop, delivered and fitted by the same team. |
| Plumbing to the kitchen | £648per room | Sink, dishwasher and machine services where they already are. Moving them is the cost, not the fitting. |
| Appliance install | £114each | Per appliance. A standard integrated set is five to seven of these. |
Depends on your house and your choices
Add the ones that apply. This is the part of a quote that usually arrives as a surprise, so it is published instead.
| Item | Rate inc VAT | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen install only | £132per linear m | Where you supply the kitchen. Roughly a 15% saving overall — and you carry the lead time and any damaged-on-delivery argument. |
| Quartz worktop | £456per linear m | Templated once the cabinetry is set, then cut and fitted. |
| Stone worktop | £696per linear m | Marble, granite or sintered. Same install, different slab cost and a different care routine. |
| Downdraft extraction | £540each | Where an island has no route for an overhead extract, or you would rather not look at one. |
| Glass splashback | £384per m² | Templated after the worktop. One piece, no grout. |
| Tiled splashback | £114per m² | The assumed baseline in the figures above. |
| Undercabinet lighting | £144per m | The difference between a kitchen you can work in after dark and one you cannot. |
| Underfloor heating | £173per m² | Plus a manifold. Frees the wall the radiator was on, which in a kitchen is usually worth more than the heat. |
| Boiler relocation | £3,360per project | Commonly forced by the new layout. Worth settling on the drawings. |
| New consumer unit | £576per property | A modern kitchen adds enough circuits to need one on most pre-2000 boards. |
These are the rates we price with, at the unit we price them in. Add the ones that apply to your house and you will land within a few thousand pounds of our written estimate before you have spoken to anybody.
What is not settled until the drawings are.
A kitchen is built around its appliances and its services, so these are decided on the drawing rather than on site. Settling them late is what turns a kitchen project into a series of variations.
Appliance schedule
Cabinetry is built around the appliances. A change after the workshop drawing is signed is a remake, not an adjustment.
Worktop material
Carried as a provisional sum against the run length. The install cost is the same; the slab is not.
Services relocation
The line that decides whether this is a kitchen replacement or a kitchen project. Keeping services where they are is the biggest saving on this page.
Electrical capacity
A pre-2000 board frequently will not take a modern kitchen without replacement.
Floor level and substrate
A sprung timber floor under a new stone or large-format finish needs overboarding or it will crack.
None of these carries a figure here, and that is deliberate. We work to a contract plus variations, every variation is priced and agreed before the work happens, and a site risk allowance is already inside the rates above. Putting an invented allowance against an unknown would make the total look more settled than it is.
How accurate is a number from a web page?
As accurate as what you have told us, and no more. A figure from a size bracket is a starting point rather than a quotation, and we would rather label it than let you discover it.
| Accuracy | What we know | Why it narrows |
|---|---|---|
| ±20%Ballpark | Project type and a size bracket | A starting point. Useful for deciding whether to keep reading. |
| ±14%Good estimate | A measured floor area | Your actual area instead of a bracket — the single biggest improvement available. |
| ±10%Sharp estimate | Postcode and finish level | Your build zone and the specification you actually want. |
| ±7%Survey-grade | Scope answered at a measured survey | Room count, drainage, structure and access seen rather than assumed. |
The rungs are cumulative — a postcode cannot sharpen a guessed floor area, because the area is the number the rate multiplies. ±7% is a statement about that set of answers, not a promise that the figure cannot move. We work to a contract plus variations, and every variation is costed and agreed with you before the work happens rather than after.
The set-scope package, £16,950.
Where the job is a like-for-like replacement, we sell it as a fixed scope rather than pricing it from scratch. It comes in under the bespoke figures above because the scope is capped — not because the cabinetry is.
Bespoke design, cabinetry made by Selection.Works in our own workshop, worktops and splashbacks supplied and fitted, full strip-out, plumbing, electrics and appliance install, then flooring, painting and finishing. 3–4 weeks on site, with the same 12-month workmanship warranty on second-fix fittings.
Where it stops. The moment a job needs strip-to-brick, structural work or services moved, it leaves the package and is priced as a bespoke estimate — which is what the tables above are. We tell you which one you are buying at the survey, not at the invoice. The full package menu sets out all four.
The ones people actually ask.
A measured survey is what closes the gap.
Everything above is derived from a room size and a finish level. A survey replaces both with measurements, finds where the services actually run, checks what the floor will take, and takes the band to ±7%. It costs £550 and it is credited in full against your contract, so if you build with us it has cost you nothing.
Book the survey →Want to see the workshop and the cabinetry first? How we build kitchens. Adding an extension around it? Extension costs.