Tiling is one of the trades where labour and materials really are separate decisions, and where the material choice can matter more to the final bill than the rate.
Labour
MyJobQuote's June 2026 guide puts tiling labour at roughly £20 to £40 per square metre.
The spread within that reflects difficulty rather than region. Plain square tiles in a running bond on a flat wall sit at the bottom. Mosaics, herringbone, large-format porcelain, natural stone and anything needing many cuts around fittings sit at the top.
Most tilers price small jobs as a day rate and switch to per-square-metre on anything larger, because on a big area the arithmetic becomes predictable.
Materials
This is where the range is genuinely wide. MyJobQuote gives ceramic £12 to £50 per square metre, natural stone such as granite, marble or slate £40 to £90, porcelain £50 to £100, and glass £110 to £160.
So the tile you choose can swing the material cost by a factor of ten, against a labour rate that varies by a factor of two.
Consumables are modest: adhesive at £20 to £25 a bag covering three to four square metres, grout at £17 a bag covering around fifteen, and sealant at about £20.
Measure it yourself
Wall area is length times height for each wall, minus openings. Floor area is the room's footprint.
Always order more tile than the measured area. Ten per cent extra is the usual allowance for cuts and breakages, and fifteen per cent for diagonal or herringbone layouts, which generate far more waste. Order it all at once, because tiles are made in batches and a later batch may not match.
Keep a few spares after the job. Finding a matching replacement for a cracked tile three years later is close to impossible.
What the labour rate does not include
Preparation is the big one. Removing old tiles is charged by time, at around £30 an hour according to the same guide, and it frequently damages the wall underneath.
Levelling an uneven wall, boarding out, priming, and tanking a wet area are all separate. In an older South London property, walls are rarely flat and floors rarely level, so preparation is a real cost rather than a formality.
Ask for the quote broken into preparation, labour and materials. Two quotes that differ by several hundred pounds usually differ on preparation.
Why the tile size changes the price
Large-format tiles look economical because there are fewer of them, but they are harder to lay. They demand a much flatter substrate, because any deviation shows as lipping between tiles. They are heavy and awkward, often needing two people. And cutting them requires proper equipment.
Small mosaics look cheap per sheet but are slow, and the number of joints makes grouting a much longer job.
The cheapest tile to lay is a medium-format ceramic in a simple pattern on a flat wall. Everything else costs more in labour, whatever it costs to buy.