What to charge / Plumbers · Checked 29 September 2026
What to charge as a plumber in 2026
Checkatrade’s 2026 guides put a plumber’s standard rate at £40 to £60 an hour and a day’s labour at £320 to £480. Taskrabbit’s national average is £46 an hour, and emergency or out-of-hours work runs at around £110 an hour. Below you will find job prices from a Which? survey of its Trusted Traders, averages for nine cities, what Gas Safe registration costs and a calculator for your own rate.
Rates
Typical plumber rates in the UK
| Rate | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| An hour, standard daytime rate | £40 to £60 [1][2] | Checkatrade’s April and May 2026 guides. They do not say whether VAT is included. |
| An hour, Taskrabbit national average | £46 [3] | From plumbing jobs booked through its platform, updated September 2026. |
| An hour for emergency or out-of-hours work | around £110 [2] | Checkatrade, May 2026. |
| For a day’s labour | £320 to £480 [1][4][5] | Checkatrade’s 2026 table. Its older call-out guide and MyBuilder both give £325 to £375, labour only, with parts and emergency call-out fees on top. |
| Call-out fee to attend and assess | £50 to £150 [3] | Charged by many plumbers as a fixed fee, separate from the hourly rate. |
| Emergency call-out fee | £100 to £120 [4] | Checkatrade’s call-out guide, last updated July 2025. |
| An hour, HaMuch average | £42 [6][7] | Not including materials. Its heating engineer average is £43, from £30 to £75 depending on where you live. |
| An hour for an experienced plumber | £60 to £80 [5] | MyBuilder’s bands by experience (August 2025): mid-level £40 to £60, apprentice £15 to £25. |
Where you work changes the rate
- London, Taskrabbit: £68 an hour on average, with an average invoice of £124. [3]
- London, HaMuch: £55 an hour for a plumber and £60 for a heating engineer. Heating engineer day rates there reach £480. [6][7]
- Reading, Milton Keynes and Bristol, Taskrabbit: £52, £51 and £48 an hour. Average invoices are £90, £143 and £91. [3]
- Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, Taskrabbit: £48, £46 and £42 an hour. Average invoices are £113, £109 and £78. [3]
- Edinburgh and Glasgow, Taskrabbit: £40 and £35 an hour, with average invoices of £65 and £70. [3]
- London and the South East, Which?: expect prices towards the top of its job ranges below. [8]
Job prices
What common plumber jobs cost
What customers are typically quoted, from published UK price guides. Use them as a check on your own quotes, not a fixed price list.
| Job | Typical price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Fix a leaking kitchen tap | £45 to £200 [8] | About an hour. Labour and materials, excluding VAT |
| Replace a kitchen mixer tap, isolation valves fitted | £50 to £200 [8] | 1 to 2 hours. Customer supplies the tap. Excluding VAT |
| Replace a kitchen mixer tap, no isolation valves | £90 to £300 [8] | About 2.5 hours, as the system has to be drained. Excluding VAT |
| Fit an outside tap | £80 to £400 [8] | About 2 hours. Labour and materials, excluding VAT |
| Fix or unblock a toilet | £80 to £300 [8] | Call-out fee, labour and materials, excluding VAT |
| Replace a cistern ball valve | £50 to £300 [8] | 1 to 2 hours. Labour and materials, excluding VAT |
| Fit a new toilet in the same position | £80 to £600 [8] | 2 to 4 hours. Customer supplies the toilet. Excluding VAT |
| Repair a burst pipe, emergency | £100 to £500 [8] | 1 to 2 hours. Call-out fee, labour and materials, excluding VAT |
| Replace a hot-water tank | £350 to £1,000 [8] | Half a day to a day. The tank itself is not included. Excluding VAT |
| Boiler service | £60 to £120 [3][7] | Taskrabbit’s range. HaMuch’s average is £60, all labour |
| Power flush of a heating system | £350 to £800 [9] | Checkatrade, excluding VAT |
| Swap an old combi boiler for a new one in the same place | £2,500 to £4,000 [10] | Supply and fit. Fitting alone is usually £1,000 to £2,000. Checkatrade figures from 2024 to early 2025 |
| Plumbing for a new bathroom | £2,700 to £4,000 [2] | Per room, average £3,250. Sanitaryware not included |
The Which? prices come from a November 2025 survey of 25 of its Trusted Traders. They cover labour and materials but not VAT, and where the customer buys the tap, toilet or tank, that item is not in the price.
Your numbers
Work out your own hourly rate
Start from what you want to earn, add what the business costs to run, and divide by the hours you can actually charge for. Travel, quoting, paperwork and chasing payments are not chargeable hours, so be honest about them.
The starting numbers are examples, not a recommendation. Change them to match your year. The result is before income tax and National Insurance, and before VAT if you are registered.
Before you set a price
Costs your rate has to cover
- Gas Safe registration: from 1 April 2026, a new business registration is £319.96 plus VAT (£383.95 with VAT). Renewing online is £139.78 plus VAT (£167.74), or £171.58 (£205.90) by phone and post, and each engineer adds £44.40 plus VAT (£53.28). [11]
- Renewing late: Gas Safe adds a late renewal charge of £137.78 plus VAT (£165.34). [11]
- Paying staff: wages and allowances under the JIB-PMES plumbing agreement rose 3.4% from 5 January 2026, with a further 3.4% agreed from 4 January 2027. [12]
- VAT: registration becomes compulsory when your taxable turnover goes over £90,000 for the last 12 months. After that you charge VAT at the standard rate of 20%, so tell customers whether a quote includes it. [13][14]
What the job pays elsewhere
Pricing well
How to price your work as a plumber
Pick one way to charge for turning up
Some plumbers charge a fixed call-out fee to attend and diagnose, then an hourly rate. Others fold the visit into a higher first hour and bill in smaller units after that. Either works. What loses customers is a surprise, so say which you use when you take the booking and put it on the invoice the same way every time.
Give out-of-hours work its own price list
Checkatrade puts emergency work at around £110 an hour, against £40 to £60 in the day. Write down when your out-of-hours rate starts, whether bank holidays count, and whether the call-out fee changes too. If you do take emergency jobs, an out-of-hours answering service can take the details and pass on the genuine emergencies so you are not woken for a dripping tap.
Be open about parts
Show parts and labour as separate lines. If you add a markup to parts you buy in, that is normal, but be ready to say so if asked. If the customer supplies a tap or toilet, as the Which? prices assume, make clear you guarantee your fitting, not their part.
Build Gas Safe into every gas job
Registration is a yearly cost of doing business, with a charge for each engineer on top. Spread it across your gas work rather than your whole rate, so a boiler service or gas repair carries the cost of the qualification it needs and a tap washer does not.
Offer fixed prices for the jobs you do every week
Customers find it easier to say yes to a set price for a boiler service, a tap swap or an outside tap than to an open hourly rate. Keep an hourly rate for fault finding and older systems where you cannot see the problem until you start.
Quote installations in writing
Boiler swaps, cylinders and bathrooms run into thousands of pounds. Visit first, then give a written quote that lists the equipment, the labour, any making good, and whether VAT is included. Ask for a deposit before you order expensive parts.
The work you never get to quote for
A good rate only helps if the customer reaches you. Most callers who hit voicemail ring the next name on the list. If you miss three calls a week and two in five would have become a £200 job, that is about £1,039 of work a month going to someone else. See what a missed call costs, or how While You Work answers calls for plumbers while you are on a job.
Questions
What plumbers ask about pricing
How much do plumbers charge per hour in the UK?
Checkatrade’s 2026 guides give £40 to £60 an hour for standard daytime work. Taskrabbit’s national average is £46 and HaMuch’s is £42, not including materials. Emergency and out-of-hours work is around £110 an hour, according to Checkatrade.
What is a plumber’s day rate in the UK?
Checkatrade’s April 2026 table puts it at £320 to £480. Its call-out guide and MyBuilder both give £325 to £375, which covers labour but not parts or emergency call-out fees.
How much is a plumber’s call-out fee?
Taskrabbit says many plumbers charge £50 to £150 to attend and assess, separate from the hourly rate. HaMuch gives an average of £75, rising to £150 or more outside normal hours. Checkatrade puts the average emergency call-out at £100 to £120.
How much should a plumber charge to fix a leaking tap?
Which? Trusted Traders quote £45 to £200 for a leaking kitchen tap, about an hour’s work. Replacing a mixer tap is £50 to £200 where isolation valves are fitted and £90 to £300 where the system has to be drained. All of these include materials but not VAT.
How much does a boiler service cost in the UK?
Taskrabbit’s guide puts a boiler service at £60 to £120. HaMuch gives an average of £60, all of it labour. Gas work has to be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer.
How much does Gas Safe registration cost in 2026?
From 1 April 2026 a new registration is £319.96 plus VAT and an online business renewal is £139.78 plus VAT, according to the Gas Safe Register’s own magazine. Each engineer adds £44.40 plus VAT, and renewing late costs an extra £137.78 plus VAT.
Sources
Figures checked on 29 September 2026. Price guides change, so check the source before you rely on a figure. Where a source says whether a price includes VAT, the page says so; where it does not, treat the figure as unconfirmed on VAT.
- Checkatrade, How much do tradespeople cost in the UK in 2026?, Updated 04/26 (table: Last updated April 2026).
- Checkatrade, Plumbing installation costs in the UK in 2026, Updated 05/26 (table: Last updated May 2026).
- Taskrabbit UK, How much does plumbing cost?, 2026-09-01.
- Checkatrade, Plumber call-out charges, Last updated 4 July 2025 (table: Last updated May 2024).
- MyBuilder, How Much Does a Plumber Cost?, 2025-08-04.
- HaMuch, Plumber rates near you for 2026, null on page (headed 'Plumber rates 2026').
- HaMuch, Heating engineer rates near you for 2026, null on page (headed 2026).
- Which? Trusted Traders, How much do plumbers cost?, 2026-05-01 (survey of 25 Which? Trusted Traders, November 2025).
- Checkatrade, Power flush cost, Updated 05/26 (table: Last updated May 2024).
- Checkatrade, How much does a new boiler cost in 2026?, Updated 09/24 (tables: January 2025 and September 2024).
- Registered Gas Engineer (Gas Safe Register's magazine), Get ready to renew your registration: 2026/27 fees, 2026-02-24.
- JIB-PMES, JIB-PMES wages and allowances agreement for 2026 and 2027.
- GOV.UK (HMRC), How VAT works / When to register.
- GOV.UK (HMRC), VAT rates.
- National Careers Service (GOV.UK), Plumber job profile.
- National Careers Service (GOV.UK), Gas service technician job profile.
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