Painting is the trade everyone thinks they understand the price of. It’s just paint on a wall, isn’t it. How hard can it be.
Then the quotes come back at £300 and £1,100 for the same three rooms, and suddenly nobody understands anything.
The gap is almost never the painting. It’s the prep, the materials and what each decorator quietly assumed you meant. Here’s what it actually costs in 2026, and how to tell which of those two quotes is the honest one.
Day rates
Most UK decorators charge £150 to £300 a day, and the spread is mostly geography and setup:
- Self-employed, typical interior work: £180–£280 a day
- London and the South East: £240–£320 a day, per person
- Established firms with a team: £280–£420 a day
That’s labour. Whether it includes paint is the single most important question in this whole article, and we’ll come back to it.
Decorator rather than a customer? Plenty of people read a page like this to check what they’re worth. Here’s what you should charge as a painter and decorator, written from the other side of the quote.
Per room
The number most people actually want: £150 to £450 a room, with a straightforward bedroom landing around the middle.
A standard 4m × 4m bedroom with a 2.4m ceiling is roughly 50m² of wall once you take out the door and window. Walls and ceiling, two coats, with prep and cutting in, that’s 1.5 to 2.5 days of work for one decorator. Do the arithmetic against the day rates above and the per-room price stops looking arbitrary.
Where it climbs: high ceilings, stairwells (scaffold or a tower, plus the awkwardness tax), heavily papered walls, or anything Victorian with mouldings you have to cut in around.
Per square metre
For interior walls, £10 to £20 per m² is the labour-only going rate. Exterior masonry runs £8 to £25 per m², with the range driven by access and how much making good it needs first.
Per m² is the honest unit for big open spaces. It gets silly on small rooms, where you’re paying for setup, prep and cutting in more than coverage.
What’s usually not included
This is where the £300 and £1,100 quotes come from. Unless it says otherwise, most quotes exclude:
- The paint itself. If the decorator supplies it, expect 15–25% on top to cover materials and their margin.
- Stripping wallpaper. Slow, unpredictable, and priced separately for good reason.
- Remedial plastering. Filling small holes is normal. Skimming a wall is a different trade.
- Priming bare plaster. New plaster drinks a mist coat before anything else goes on.
- Specialist finishes. Spraying, lacquer, hand-painted kitchens, anything with a proper sheen.
If you’re comparing two quotes, this list is what you’re actually comparing. Ask both of them the same three questions and watch the gap close.
Three questions worth asking
Whichever quotes you’re holding, these will tell you more than the number does:
- Does that include paint? If not, add 15–25% mentally before you compare.
- What prep is in there? Filling and sanding, or stripping paper and priming bare plaster? These are very different days.
- How many coats? Two is standard. One over a dark colour will look like one.
A decorator who answers those straight away is usually the one who’ll turn up when they said they would.
If you’re the one doing the quoting
Different problem entirely, and the thing that catches most decorators out is the pricing unit: quote a day rate and being quick earns you less, not more. We’ve written up what you should charge as a painter and decorator properly, rates, margins and the jobs worth turning down.
Our painter and decorator quote template has the structure already — rooms, wall area in m², finish tiers, and extras for ceilings, skirting and wallpaper removal. Put your rates in and the maths is handled. Free online, or a £7 spreadsheet if you’d rather keep it offline.
Prices are UK-wide 2026 averages from published trade cost guides and our own template data. Your area, access and the state of the walls will move them. A decorator who’s stood in the room always beats a table on the internet.