Question 1

How much should a roofer charge per day?

Accepted Answer

Expect roughly £300 to £400 a day for a self-employed roofer in London, or £35 to £45 an hour. A two-person team runs £400 to £600 a day rather than double, because the second pair of hands is often a labourer. Most roofers quote per job, not per day.

Question 2

How much does it cost to reroof a 3 bedroom house?

Accepted Answer

A three-bedroom South London terrace costs roughly £6,500 to £12,000 including VAT in concrete tile, or £11,000 to £19,000 in natural slate. A semi is bigger, so concrete runs £9,500 to £17,500. The covering drives the difference, and a conservation area often stops you substituting a cheaper one.

Question 3

How much does it cost to replace a roof on a 4 bedroom house UK?

Accepted Answer

A detached four-bedroom roof is roughly 100 to 120 square metres. In London expect £17,000 to £27,000 including VAT for concrete tile, or £24,000 to £39,000 for natural slate. The UK figures behind those, excluding VAT, are £11,500 to £18,000 and £16,000 to £26,000.

Question 4

How much does a new roof cost in the UK in 2026?

Accepted Answer

A typical UK three-bed re-roof costs £8,000 to £13,000 excluding VAT, which is £9,600 to £15,600 including it. Be careful with the "average" you find quoted: Checkatrade publishes three different 2026 averages of £8,000, £10,000 and £13,000, and all of them exclude VAT.

Question 5

What is the most expensive part of replacing a roof?

Accepted Answer

It depends which measure you use, and published sources disagree. On Checkatrade's per-square-metre installed rates, labour at around £130 against £50 for material supply makes labour the biggest line. On an itemised breakdown, materials of £3,630 to £10,850 sit against pure labour of £2,000 to £4,500, putting materials ahead. On neither basis is it scaffolding.

Question 6

Why are roofers so expensive?

Accepted Answer

Because the work is dangerous, insured accordingly, and short of people. Falls from height caused 31 of 126 GB worker deaths in 2025/26. Safe access equipment is a cost of doing the job, not an upsell. And 32% of building firms cannot recruit roofers with the right skills, up from 21% in late 2024.

Question 7

How can you tell a dodgy roofer?

Accepted Answer

The strongest single signal is that they approached you. Trading Standards have issued repeated warnings about cold callers offering roof cleaning. After that: cash only, a large deposit before anything has started, no safe access priced into a full re-roof, and insurance you cannot verify without being sent to a broker.

Question 8

What to ask a roofer before hiring in the UK?

Accepted Answer

Ask whether they are registered with a roofing competent person scheme, which lets them certify the work themselves and have the scheme notify the council, with no Building Control inspection needed. Ask what public liability cover they hold, and whether they carry employers' liability, which is legally required if they have staff. Then ask whether scaffolding, the pavement licence and VAT sit inside the quoted figure.

Question 9

How to pick the best roofer?

Accepted Answer

Check the credential rather than the logo. Competent person registration, NFRC membership and TrustMark all have public search pages, and a badge on a van proves nothing until you have found the firm on one of them. Then ask what any guarantee is worth, and on a slate roof, ask about salvage.

Question 10

Do roofers need to be licensed in the UK?

Accepted Answer

No. There is no statutory licensing regime for roofers in the UK, and anyone may legally trade as one with no qualification, registration or insurance. What exists instead is voluntary: competent person scheme registration, which alone carries statutory force, NFRC membership, and TrustMark. The work is regulated; the person is not.

Question 11

Should I pay a roofer in cash?

Accepted Answer

Paying cash is legal and the UK sets no limit on it. A cash discount is lawful; a discount conditional on there being no invoice is tax evasion, and that is the line worth watching. You are not ordinarily liable for a trader's undeclared income. What cash costs you is enforcement, not rights.

Question 12

Do roofers charge for a quote?

Accepted Answer

Usually not. Practice is mixed and nobody publishes reliable data on it, so treat any confident percentage as invented. Most roofers give estimates free. Written condition reports and structural surveys run roughly £50 to £300 and are often credited against the job, and Checkatrade prices a formal roof inspection at £250 excluding VAT.

Question 13

How do people afford a new roof in the UK?

Accepted Answer

Savings, a personal loan, roofer-arranged finance or a remortgage, and no dataset exists showing how the country splits between them. Whichever route you take, put some part of the price on a credit card, and a deposit is enough. Provided the job's cash price is over £100 and no more than £30,000, Section 75 makes the card issuer jointly liable for the whole job.

Question 14

How many years does a roof usually last?

Accepted Answer

Concrete tile lasts 40 to 60 years, clay 60 to 100 or more, natural slate 80 to 150, fibre-cement slate 30 to 50, torch-on felt 15 to 20 and GRP 30 to 40. EPDM is disputed: published figures run anywhere from 25 to 50 years. The covering usually outlives what sits under it.

Question 15

What is the cheapest time of year to get a new roof?

Accepted Answer

No month is reliably cheaper. The claim that winter saves 15 to 30% comes from roofing companies' own marketing, and no independent cost guide publishes any seasonal adjustment at all. What is real outside spring and summer is shorter lead times and more room to negotiate, offset by short days, weather delays and extra scaffold hire.

Question 16

What is the cheapest way to fix a leaking roof?

Accepted Answer

Catch it early and fix the defect rather than patching over it. Clearing the gutters is often the actual cure, then replacing slipped slates, then re-dressing the flashing. Expect roughly £170 to £400 excluding VAT for a small job caught early, against £500 to £1,500 or more once two winters have soaked the timbers.

Question 17

Can I get a grant to repair my roof in the UK?

Accepted Answer

There is no general roof grant in the UK. Every live national scheme funds insulation or heating rather than the roof covering, ECO4 included. The one route that genuinely can pay for roof repair is discretionary housing assistance from your own council, offered under a 2002 order and run differently in every borough.

Question 18

How often should a house roof be cleaned?

Accepted Answer

There is no recommended interval, and no authoritative source publishes one. Clean when moss is thick enough to block the gutters or hold water against the tiles, not on a schedule and not because someone knocked on the door. Trading Standards have issued repeated warnings about cold-call roof cleaning.

Hiring a roofer in South London: your questions answered

What it costs

Choosing a roofer

Paying and protection

Practical questions

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