Bathroom tiling is priced by how much of the room is being tiled, and MyJobQuote's June 2026 breakdown is unusually clear about it.
Labour by scope, medium bathroom
Fully tiling walls and floor: four days, £600 to £800. Walls only: three days, £450 to £600. Floor only: one day, £150 to £200. Around the bath only: a day and a half, £225 to £300. A splashback above the sink: half a day, £75 to £100.
A small bathroom comes in at £300 to £700 overall, and the average across all bathroom tiling jobs is around £750, with a typical range of £500 to £800.
Those labour figures assume a straightforward job on a sound, flat substrate.
What the tiles add
Materials are separate and the range is enormous: ceramic £12 to £50 per square metre, natural stone £40 to £90, porcelain £50 to £100, glass £110 to £160.
A medium bathroom might have 25 to 35 square metres of wall and floor. In ceramic at the lower end that is a few hundred pounds. In glass mosaic it is several thousand. The tile choice moves the total far more than the labour rate does.
Order ten per cent more than you measure for cuts and breakages, fifteen per cent for diagonal or herringbone layouts, and keep a few spares.
The two costs outside most quotes
Tanking. Tiles and grout are not waterproof. Grout is porous and water passes through it. A shower enclosure needs a waterproofing system applied to the substrate before tiling.
This is routinely omitted from cheaper quotes and it is the omission that causes the expensive failures. Water passing through grout into a timber floor in a Victorian terrace rots joists, and the first sign is usually a stain on the ceiling below. Ask explicitly whether tanking is included.
Removing the old tiles. Charged by time, around £30 an hour, and it frequently damages the plaster underneath. Allow for making good, and in an older property allow for the possibility that the wall needs boarding or replastering before tiling can start.
Sequencing with the rest of the bathroom
Tiling sits between first fix and second fix. Pipework and any recessed shower valve go in first, then the substrate and tanking, then tiling, then the sanitaryware and fittings.
Getting this wrong is expensive. Tiling before the shower valve is positioned means cutting into finished tiles. Fitting the bath before tiling means tiling down to it rather than behind it, which is a weaker detail at exactly the junction most exposed to water.
Talk to whoever is fitting the bathroom about the order before booking the tiler.
Where the money is best spent
If the budget is tight, spend it on preparation and tanking rather than on the tiles. A modest ceramic tile laid on a properly prepared, properly waterproofed substrate will outlast an expensive stone tile laid on an unprepared one.
The substrate is the part you cannot fix later without taking everything off.