UK Housing News
Falling building costs provide relief for homeowners - with costs down by as much as a third
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Falling building costs are making home improvements more affordable - with the average cost of a building job down 28%
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Handyman services fall the most - by over a third - while the cost of plumbing, kitchen fitting and scaffolding all fall significantly year-on-year
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Falling costs, alongside the traditional start-of-year bounce, leads to an increase in larger scale jobs like kitchen and bathroom fittings in Q1 2025
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To help consumers know what they should be paying for jobs around the home in the face of changing costs, Checkatrade has launched its Job Estimate Calculator
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Building costs have fallen by over a quarter year-or-year, according to the latest data from the Checkatrade Home Improvement Index, the most comprehensive overview of home services work carried out in the UK, based on data recorded from nearly 10m job enquiries.
The cost of the average building job has fallen 28% year-on-year, when comparing Q1 2025 to Q1 2024. The fall has been particularly marked in the past quarter - with average building costs falling 14% from £13,964 in Q4 2024 to £12,065 in Q1 2025, a 14% fall.
Many other costs have also fallen over the past 12 months. General ‘handyman services’ have fallen the most - by over a third (34%) - and tiling and electrical work have also both fallen by an average of 25%, based on confirmed quotes issued via the Checkatrade platform.
Bricklaying costs are down by over a fifth (21%) from £3,165 to £2,489 on average. Furthermore, the cost of the average plumbing job has fallen by 17% and the average kitchen fitting has fallen by 14% over the past year, from £7,087 to £6,093.
Falling costs lead to increased demand for work in Q1
In the wake of the falling prices, spending on ‘big ticket’ home improvements such as bathrooms and kitchens is up on the Checkatrade platform versus the previous quarter. There was a 17% increase in job enquiries for bathroom fittings and enquiries for kitchen fittings were up 11%. Building work in homes - larger-scale work such as extensions or structural modifications - increased 17% quarter-on-quarter.
This is supplemented by a quarter-on-quarter rise of a third (33%) in the number of interior design jobs and the figures are rounded off by a 22% increase in painting and decorating jobs.
Larger outdoor jobs are also up significantly versus the previous quarter - likely reflecting season trends but many are also up year-on-year. Driveway and patio construction is up 58% vs the last quarter. Meanwhile landscaping is up 131%. Meanwhile general gardening work enjoyed a 40% boost. Y-O-Y, landscaping work up 3% and gardening work up 4% in Q1 2025 vs Q1 2024.
Why are costs down and jobs up?
While there is traditionally a bounce in the first quarter of the year compared to the previous one, the falling costs appear to be leading to a number of homeowners deciding to go ahead with work in the first quarter of 2025.
In recent years building costs have been steadily rising - in part due Brexit and Covid, which hit supply and costs of both workers and materials. These rising costs, supplemented by the cost of living crisis, led to slightly tempered demand for some of the larger home improvement jobs over the past year.
But as demand cooled, prices began to fall, thus leading to more affordable prices for homeowners at the start of 2025. This, alongside the start of the year being a popular time to carry out work on the home, has led to many categories being up significantly at the start of 2025.
Reacting to the figures, Jambu Palaniappan, CEO at Checkatrade, says: “After ongoing rising costs fuelled by Brexit and Covid, it’s a welcome relief for consumers to see prices finally easing. We’ve seen demand for some of the bigger home improvement jobs dip over the past year, and as demand has slowed, prices have followed – making it more affordable for people to get work done. This drop in costs, combined with the usual seasonal uptick we see at the start of the year, has led to a big rise in certain types of home improvement projects recently, as consumers take advantage of better prices."
To help consumers know what they should be paying for jobs around the home in the face of changing costs, Checkatrade has launched its Job Estimate Calculator. The free-to-use tool draws on data from 1.5 million jobs completed by the site’s 50,000 vetted trade businesses to immediately generate highly accurate quotes for any home improvement project. Checkatrade’s smart tool even factors in location, seasonal demand and the option to include material costs to give an accurate price range.
To find out more on prices for home improvement and repair jobs visit the Job Estimate Calculator
