Data, measured 13 September 2026, from the PropDetect analysed base

What a refurb actually costs, by the job being done

A kitchen with the units replaced costs a median £8,968 including VAT for the room itself, measured across 212 such kitchens with a median size of 8.4 square metres, and about £13,900 all in as part of a whole-house refurbishment once prelims, access, waste, skips, margin and contingency are added. A bathroom with the suite replaced: £4,134 for the room across 649 bathrooms, about £6,400 all in. Those are the figures a property professional recognises, and every figure on this page says which rooms it is a median of, includes VAT, carries the size of the rooms it was measured on, and names the job.

The finding that changes how the costs should be read comes first: most analysed rooms needed no work at all. Only 45% of kitchens and 46% of bathrooms needed anything doing, and a third of bedrooms. An average across all rooms, or across every room above a severity score, mixes different jobs and lands on a number no builder would quote. Measured 13 September 2026, corrected 14 September 2026.

Table 1: how many analysed rooms actually need work

Rooms analysed counts every room of that type assessed from the listing photographs, including rooms that needed nothing. Share needing any work is the proportion assessed as needing at least one element refreshed or replaced.

Table 2: what the job costs, including VAT

The funnel first, because publishing the figure without it was the original fault. Of 8,742 kitchens costed, 741 needed serious work: 472 keep the carcasses, 212 replace them, and 57 do not record the decision. Of 5,888 bathrooms costed, 738 needed serious work: 649 replace the suite and 89 keep it. The rows below are segmented by that decision, never by a severity score, because a single median across both jobs describes neither: the two kitchen jobs sit at £5,044 and £8,968.

Table 3: the same jobs as a rate per square metre, including VAT

Median of each room's own cost divided by its own floor area, within the same job. This is the figure anyone in the trade can check against a quote.

A kitchen and a bathroom cost roughly the same per square metre once the main item is being replaced: £995 against £948. Bathrooms only look cheaper because they are about a quarter of the size.

Size, rate and total are three separate medians and they do not multiply out. 8.4 m2 at £995 is £8,358 against a stated median of £8,968, a 7% gap, which is expected: the median of each room's rate and the median of the totals come from different rooms. Read each column as its own figure.

Two real rooms, element by element

The objection that carries most weight is that this is guesswork from a photograph. An itemised room answers it. Both examples below are real costed rooms from the analysed base, every line includes VAT, and each sums to its stated total. The shower room is not a bathroom for £1,356: it is replacing the shower and leaving the rest. Element level keep or replace decisions, not a number attached to a room.

What the photographs gave the model to work with

The assessments behind this page draw on 63,384 photographs across 4,423 properties, a median of 14 per property. Among the defects detected: visible damp staining 1,085 times and exposed wiring 128 times, along with peeling paint, bathrooms with no extractor and no window, surface mounted electric showers. Those are the signals that move an element from keep to replace. What a photograph cannot show, behind plaster, under floors, in the roof, is set out on does AI property valuation actually work.

Table 4: the all in figure, for a whole-property refurbishment

The job figures above exclude prelims, access, waste, skips and margin. Those sit in a separate overheads bucket running at a median 34% of the room total across 441 whole-property refurbishments (lower quartile 28%, upper quartile 46%), plus a 15% contingency. A reader comparing a room figure to a builder's quote is comparing the wrong things unless this is stated, so here it is applied.

The all in uplift, about 54% at the medians, applies to a whole-property refurbishment. Doing a single room in isolation does not carry full prelims, so for a one-room job the rooms only figure plus a small allowance is closer. Do not read the grossed up number as the cost of doing one room.

Regional multipliers: an assumption the model applies, not a finding

Costs are priced at a baseline rate and then multiplied by a regional factor. That factor is an input to the model. Publishing it as what our data shows about regional cost differences would be circular, so it is published here as what the model assumes, with the number of analysed properties each multiplier was applied to. Northern Ireland is not shown: two properties.

London rests on 15 properties and Wales on 29, too few to rely on. These are calibration inputs and outside input improves them: if you price work in one of these regions and the multiplier reads wrong to you, tell us at hello@propdetect.com with what you see, and we will check it against the next set of quotes.

How these figures are produced

Each property analysed through PropDetect gets a room by room assessment from the listing photographs: whether the room needs work, the floor area, and for every element a decision to keep, refresh or replace, priced at regional labour and material rates. This page aggregates those assessments by the job being done, with the denominator stated on every column and VAT added at 20%. The method in full is in the refurbishment methodology.

How the numbers behind this page are produced, and what the method can and cannot see: does AI property valuation actually work, and the measured back-tests on the accuracy page.

What this data does not say

• These are modelled estimates of the visible work, not builder invoices. A photograph cannot see behind plaster, under floors or into a roof, so any figure here is a floor for the visible work, not a forecast of the final bill.
• Job figures are per room and include VAT. They exclude appliances, rewiring, boilers, windows, structural work, moving services, EPC works and the overheads bucket, which Table 4 adds back for a whole-property refurbishment.
• One specification only: mid range modern, builder fitted. High specification work will cost more than anything on this page.
• Size, rate and total are separate medians of the same rooms and are not claimed to multiply out.
• Figures are as of 13 September 2026 and are refreshed from the committed query, never edited by hand.

One limit applies to every figure on this page: the properties were chosen by PropDetect users to analyse, so this is a sample of investor interest, not a survey of the UK market. Where our users search shapes what the numbers can say.

Corrections, 14 September 2026

The first version of this page, published 13 September 2026, showed a single median per room type across every analysed room, including the majority that needed no work at all: kitchen £3,337, living or dining £1,551, bathroom or shower room £1,356, bedroom £977, hall, landing, stairs £804. Those were medians of a sample in which most rooms needed nothing, presented under headings that implied the cost of doing the room, and they were withdrawn.

The second version published conditional medians taken straight from the room table, which stores costs before VAT is added, under headings that said including VAT: kitchen £2,425 and £4,670, bathroom £1,130 and £3,300, living or dining £1,111 and £3,271, bedroom £704 and £2,466. Withdrawn the same day.

The third version added VAT but segmented by severity score, which blends a kitchen that keeps its carcasses with one that replaces them: kitchen £2,910 and £5,604, bathroom £1,356 and £3,960, living or dining £1,333 and £3,925, bedroom £845 and £2,959. Also withdrawn the same day, along with the claim that bathrooms are the most expensive room per square metre, which does not survive segmenting by the job. Every figure above now states its denominator, includes VAT, carries the size of the rooms it was measured on, and names the job. The regional page built on the original basis is down until it is recomputed the same way.

Whether your kitchen keeps its carcasses or loses them is a question about that kitchen. Run your own property through PropDetect and the same figures arrive for that address in about three minutes. No card needed for the first analyses.