The room sets the baseline, the unit run sets the bill
Kitchen cost does not scale neatly with floor area. A narrow galley in a terraced house can carry nearly as much unit run along its two walls as a square kitchen twice its size, and it is the run of base and wall units — plus the worktop sitting on it — that drives the materials bill. Measure the floor area for the calculator, but walk the walls too: every metre of run is carcasses, doors, worktop, and fitting time.
Scope is the biggest single lever
The calculator's scope input mirrors the three jobs fitters actually quote. A refresh — refacing the existing units and fitting new worktops — keeps the layout, the plumbing, and most of the mess out of the picture. A pull-and-replace swaps everything like for like in the same positions, which keeps services work modest. A full gut with a layout change moves the sink, hob, or walls, and that is where first-fix plumbing, gas, and electrics start to dominate the quote. Be honest about which job you are pricing: moving the sink two metres is a different project from replacing it where it stands.
The three scopes are not even priced on the same scale as each other. A refresh is priced door by door: £131.10 for a standard replacement cupboard door and £258.90 for a drawer set, both figures including VAT and the joiner's time. A full renovation to a budget specification runs £6,200 to £16,800, averaging £11,500 — higher than the £5,000 to £10,000 budget band shown on the pillar page, because the two describe different jobs: B&Q's band prices a new kitchen installation, Checkatrade's prices a full renovation at a budget specification. A full bespoke renovation runs £15,000 to £50,000 and upwards, with £35,000 quoted as the average rather than the entry point. Choosing the scope honestly is worth more to the accuracy of your estimate than any other input on the page.
Supply routes and what a quote should include
British kitchens arrive by several routes: flat-pack units from the big sheds that you or your fitter assemble, rigid pre-built carcasses from trade suppliers, or fully bespoke joinery. Big retailers will quote supply-only — leaving you to find an independent fitter — or supply-and-fit through their own installation arm, and the two routes rarely price the same work the same way.
Pricing them against each other means separating the units from the labour, and both halves have published anchors. Checkatrade puts kitchen units supply-only at £1,500 to £10,000, averaging £3,000, and fitting an average-sized family kitchen at £2,000 to £6,000, averaging £3,500. Worktop fitting is often quoted as its own job at £300 to £1,000, averaging £500. A supply-and-fit package that lands well under the sum of those parts is either a genuinely keen price or a narrower scope than you think — which is the question to ask rather than assume.
A second marketplace is worth checking those labour numbers against, because labour is the half of the quote you cannot look up in a brochure. MyBuilder puts the labour for a full kitchen fitting at £1,500 to £5,000 and the whole fitting job, materials included, at £3,000 to £12,000. Its itemised labour lines are more useful still when you are reading a quote: £300 to £1,000 for design, £600 to £2,500 for cabinet installation, £200 to £2,500 for worktop fitting, £500 to £1,500 for electrical work, £300 to £1,000 for plumbing and £200 to £1,000 for tiling. Two marketplaces built from different tradespeople overlap closely on the headline labour figure, which is reason to trust the £3,000-odd mid-point and to treat any quote far below it as a scope question.
Whichever route you take, check whether quotes are VAT-inclusive, whether they cover Part P notification for new circuits and a Gas Safe registered engineer for hob or boiler connections, and whether waste-away and flooring are in or out.
Step by step
- 1
Measure the kitchen floor area
Measure the room in square metres and enter it in the calculator. Note the wall run available for units as well — galley kitchens punch above their floor area because both long walls carry units and worktop.
- 2
Choose the scope of work
Pick refresh (reface units, new worktops), pull-and-replace in the same layout, or full gut with a layout change. Match this to the job you would actually describe to a fitter, because services work scales sharply with scope.
- 3
Set the finish level
Stock flat-pack units with laminate worktops sit at the budget end; semi-custom rigid units with quartz sit mid-range; bespoke joinery with granite or premium stone sits at the top. The finish level multiplies almost every materials line — a five-metre worktop run averages £500 in laminate against £850 in granite on Checkatrade's figures, and made-to-measure cabinetry alone averages £18,500.
- 4
Decide on appliances
Use the appliances toggle to include or exclude a new appliance package. Checkatrade's kitchen estimator carries roughly £2,000 per project for appliances, so keeping serviceable existing ones is one of the cleanest ways to trim a quote without touching the kitchen's look.
- 5
Apply your region
Select your region so the estimate reflects local fitting wages, the relevant compliance regime — Part P and Gas Safe in England and Wales, building warrants in Scotland — and VAT on the displayed total. The national benchmark to compare against is £250 to £350 a day for a kitchen fitter, averaging £300.
- 6
Sanity-check against real quotes
Get two or three itemised quotes and compare them line by line against the calculator's breakdown, then against the published market bands: B&Q puts a new kitchen installation from £5,000 with £7,000 to £10,000 typical, the HomeOwners Alliance reports 27% of UK renovating homeowners spending £10,000 to £20,000, and Checkatrade's bespoke average is £35,000 against a high of £50,000. For the units alone, Which? secret-shopped a twelve-unit kitchen at £1,500 to £2,500 from Ikea and £7,000 to £9,000 from Magnet, VAT and discounts included — the cleanest like-for-like comparison published, because the unit count is held constant. Ask each fitter what is excluded — flooring, tiling, waste-away, and appliance connection are the usual gaps.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I estimate a new kitchen cost before getting quotes?
- Yes. Measure the floor area, choose the scope and finish level, decide whether appliances are included, and set your region. The calculator gives a structured starting range; a fitter still needs to survey the room to confirm services, levels, and access.
- Why do kitchen quotes vary so much for the same room?
- Quotes bundle different things: some include flooring, tiling, decoration, and waste-away, others are fit-only on supply-only units. VAT treatment, appliance connection, and who handles Part P and Gas Safe sign-off also differ. Always compare itemised, VAT-inclusive figures.
- Is supply-and-fit cheaper than buying units and hiring a fitter?
- Not reliably either way. Supply-and-fit gives one point of responsibility and a managed programme; supply-only plus an independent fitter can cost less but leaves you coordinating deliveries, trades, and snagging. Price both routes for the same specification before deciding, using the published averages — around £3,000 for the units and £3,500 to fit an average family kitchen — to see which half of a bundled quote is carrying the margin.