Carpet fitting price per m2 in the UK is £4 to £10 for fitting only, where you supply the carpet, and £15 to £70 per m² for carpet supplied and fitted, depending on the quality chosen. Underlay, gripper, door bars and uplift of the old floor covering sit on top of the fitting rate.
This page is for builders and fit-out contractors putting a floor covering allowance into a price for a client. Every figure is what a homeowner pays including VAT.
The three ways the same job is bought
A carpet quote can mean three different things, and the first job when you price is to say which one you are giving. The table below uses a mid-range twist pile so the three line up.
| How it is bought | What it covers | Cost per m² |
|---|---|---|
| Supply only | The carpet itself, delivered, nothing fitted | £18 to £30 |
| Fitting only | Fitter's labour, carpet and underlay supplied by the client | £4 to £10 |
| Supplied and fitted | Carpet plus fitting labour, underlay priced separately | £25 to £40 |
The supplied and fitted figure is a little above the two added together because the roll is bought to the drop, not to the exact floor area, and the offcut is paid for.
Carpet supplied and fitted cost per m2 by type
Underlay, gripper and door bars are separate lines and are priced further down.
| Carpet type | Supplied and fitted per m² |
|---|---|
| Budget polypropylene | £15 to £25 |
| Twist pile, mid-range | £25 to £40 |
| Loop pile or berber | £28 to £45 |
| Wool and wool-mix | £35 to £70 |
| Heavy contract carpet or carpet tiles | £22 to £40 |
Underlay cost per m2
Underlay is bought separately from the carpet in almost every case. A thicker, denser underlay makes the floor feel softer underfoot, cuts impact noise between floors and keeps the pile standing up for longer, which is why a cheap underlay under a good carpet is a false saving.
| Underlay | Supply only per m² | Supplied and fitted per m² |
|---|---|---|
| PU foam, 7 to 8 mm, general bedrooms | £3 to £6 | £6 to £9 |
| Crumb rubber, 8 to 10 mm, stairs and heavy traffic | £5 to £9 | £8 to £12 |
| Felt or felt and rubber combination, 10 to 12 mm | £6 to £11 | £9 to £14 |
Gripper, door bars and the other extras
These are the lines that turn a bare per m² rate into the price actually paid, and they are the ones most often missing from a cheap quote.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Gripper rod around the room, supplied and fitted | £25 to £45 for a typical bedroom |
| Door bar or threshold strip, supplied and fitted | £10 to £25 each |
| Carpet join, taped and seamed | £5 to £12 per linear metre |
| Uplift and disposal of old carpet and underlay | £2 to £5 per m², or £30 to £80 per room |
| Furniture moved and put back by the fitter | £30 to £80 per room |
| Latex screed or levelling compound over a poor subfloor | £12 to £25 per m² |
| Plywood overlay, 6 mm, screwed down | £15 to £30 per m² |
A typical double bedroom has 14 to 16 metres of perimeter, so new gripper adds roughly £25 to £45 to the room. Disposal is not free to the fitter either: carpet and underlay go out through a registered carrier, and anyone taking waste away for money has to be on the Environment Agency's waste carrier register.
Stairs and landing
Stairs are priced as a flight, not by area, because every tread and riser is cut, folded and fixed on its own.
| Job | Fitting only | Supplied and fitted |
|---|---|---|
| Straight flight, about 13 steps | £120 to £200 | £300 to £600 |
| Flight with winders or a half landing | £180 to £300 | £400 to £800 |
| Landing, 4 to 6 m² | £40 to £90 | £120 to £250 |
The rule of thumb for quantity: allow about 0.5 m² of carpet per step on a standard 1 metre wide staircase, so a 13 step flight takes roughly 6 to 7 m² once waste is in, and stairs with a landing come out around 10 m². Always order stair carpet in one length where the pile allows, so the pile runs the same way down the whole flight.
Fitter day rates and minimum charges
Most fitters price per m² for rooms and per flight for stairs, but the day rate is the sense check behind it: £180 to £300 a day across most of the UK, and £250 to £350 in London. One fitter gets through three to four average bedrooms in a day, or a stairs and landing in roughly half a day.
Below about 10 m² the rate stops working, so there is a minimum charge of £80 to £150 for a single small room or a hallway. Three bedrooms and a hallway, carpet and underlay supplied by the client, usually lands at £200 to £350 for the labour.
Measuring up
Carpet comes in 4 m and 5 m roll widths, and the room width decides everything. A room up to 4 m wide takes a single drop off a 4 m roll with no join; a room 4.2 m wide needs a 5 m roll or a join, and the offcut is still paid for. Measure the widest point of the room, including into bay windows, through doorways to the centre of the door and into any alcove, then add 75 to 100 mm each way for trimming.
Allow 10 to 15% waste on a simple rectangular room and up to 20% where there is a bay, a chimney breast or a pattern to match across a join. Measure under radiators to the wall, since the carpet goes under them. Stairs are counted per tread and riser rather than by area, and a winder is counted as a step and a half for cutting time.
Typical finished totals
Mid-range twist pile with standard underlay, new gripper and a door bar, supplied and fitted. Uplift and disposal of the old carpet is not included in these figures.
| Room | Area | Supplied and fitted total |
|---|---|---|
| Small bedroom | 9 m² | £320 to £550 |
| Bedroom, 12 ft by 12 ft | 13 m² | £450 to £750 |
| Large lounge | 20 m² | £700 to £1,150 |
| Stairs and landing | about 10 m² | £400 to £800 |
| Whole 3 bed house, stairs and landing included | 70 to 90 m² | £1,800 to £3,800 |
A job priced end to end
A rear bedroom, 4.0 m by 3.6 m, 14.4 m² of floor, old carpet coming out, mid-range twist pile going down on a crumb rubber underlay.
The carpet comes off a 4 m roll at a drop of 3.7 m, so 14.8 m² is ordered with no join, at £265 to £445 supply only. Fitting the 14.4 m² of floor is £70 to £115. Underlay supplied and fitted is £115 to £175. New gripper around 14 m of perimeter is £20 to £40, one door bar £10 to £25, and uplift and disposal of the old carpet and underlay £40 to £70. The finished job comes out at £500 to £900, which is where a 14 m² room should sit against the room table above.
What the cheapest fitting rate leaves out
A £4 per m² fitting rate is the bare minimum, and it usually means the old carpet is not lifted or taken away, the existing gripper is reused whatever state it is in, there are no new door bars, nothing is done about a hollow board or an uneven screed, the furniture is already out of the room, and the offcuts are left stacked in the garden. Each of those comes back as an extra on the day or as a floor that looks wrong once the light hits it.
Price the complete job and compare the complete job. A room at £4 per m² fitting plus six extras is rarely cheaper than the fitter who quoted everything in one figure.
What to put on the quote line
Name all of this and the client and the fitter are talking about the same job:
- uplift of the existing carpet, underlay and gripper
- disposal, and who pays the tip or skip charge
- any levelling, latex or ply overlay, and the area it covers
- underlay type and thickness
- new gripper, or reuse of the existing gripper
- number of joins and where they fall
- door bars, how many and in what finish
- stairs: number of steps, winders, and the landing
- furniture moved out and back, or the room left clear by the client
- offcuts taken away or left for the client
Regional ranges
London and the South East run 20 to 30% above the rest of the UK on labour: fitting only is £6 to £12 per m² there against £4 to £8 in the Midlands, the North and Wales. Supplied and fitted follows the same pattern, roughly £30 to £50 per m² for a mid-range twist in London against £25 to £40 elsewhere. Carpet itself costs much the same wherever it is bought, so the whole difference sits in the labour.
Carpet inside a bigger project
On a refurbishment or a new build, carpet is one task in the Finishes phase, priced by area alongside the other floor coverings, with protection, making good and cleaning sitting in the project's own phases rather than on the carpet line. Recarpeting on its own is a different animal: it carries its own visit, its own minimum charge, protection of the route through the house, and the cost of taking the old floor covering away.
How long it takes and how long it lasts
One fitter lays three to four average bedrooms in a day, or a stairs and landing in three to four hours. A whole 3 bed house is usually a two day job for one fitter, or a day for two.
Life expectancy is where the money shows: budget polypropylene gives five to eight years in a bedroom and far less on stairs, a mid-range twist eight to twelve, and a wool or wool-mix fifteen years or more on a good underlay. Heavy contract carpet is specified by wear rating rather than pile, which is why it ends up in hallways and rentals.
Pricing the whole fit-out
Floor coverings are one of the last lines on a project and one of the easiest to under-measure when the rest of the finishes are being priced at the same time. Our detailed construction estimate prices flooring alongside every other trade on the job, and our estimating software gives builders a priced estimate in minutes once the rooms, areas and finishes are entered.