New roof cost: what a re-roof actually costs
£95 to £155 per m²
A full re-roof in concrete tile works out at roughly £95 to £155 per square metre of roof area, which puts a typical three bedroom semi at £7,500 to £12,500. Natural slate runs about half as much again. Those figures include stripping the old roof, scaffolding, new underlay and battens, and taking the waste away.
Ask the internet what a new roof costs and you get eight answers. The published guides currently say £4,000 to £7,000, or an average of £5,250, or £5,000 to £12,000, or £8,000, or £8,000 to £14,000, or £5,000 to £20,000. All of them are honest. None of them are about your house.
They disagree because a national average is a number with the actual roof taken out of it. Roofs are not priced by the house, they are priced by the area of the roof and what goes back on it, and a back-to-back terrace and a four bedroom detached are not the same amount of roof.
So this guide does it the other way round. It works out the rate per square metre that the published figures imply, applies it to the property types people actually search for, and shows the working so you can check it against whatever quote you have in your hand.
Show the working
Where that rate comes from
The Federation of Master Builders publishes £7,500 to £12,500 for a three bedroom semi-detached with about 80 square metres of roof. Divide one by the other and you get £94 to £156 per square metre. That is the rate, and it is the only figure on this page that does any real work.
It cross-checks. Checkatrade puts the UK average roof replacement at £8,000, with most homeowners between £4,000 and £19,000. Countrywide quotes £8,000 to £14,000 for concrete tile and £13,000 to £20,000 for natural slate. MyBuilder says £5,000 to £12,000. MyJobQuote gives an average of £5,250 and three to five days on site. Run the rate across normal house sizes and you land inside all of them, which is what you would expect if the rate is real and the averages are just different mixes of house.
Natural slate is roughly one and a half times concrete tile, which is where £145 to £235 per square metre comes from. Reclaimed stone slate, which matters on a lot of Yorkshire roofs, is higher again and depends entirely on what can be sourced to match.
Roof area is not floor area. A pitched roof is bigger than the footprint underneath it, usually by about a fifth on a standard pitch, and a steeper roof is bigger again. If you are estimating from your floor plan, add that on before you multiply.
Find your house
What a re-roof costs by property type
Roof area is the driver, so the rows are ordered by how much roof there is rather than how big the house looks. Every figure is the rate above applied to that area, except the semi, which is the published figure the rate came from.
| Property | Roof area | Concrete tile | Natural slate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Back-to-back or small terraceSmall roof, but access is often the worst of any house type, and a shared roof line means agreeing where your half stops. | 45 to 60 m² | £4,300 to £9,300 | £6,500 to £14,100 |
| Through terraceFront and back slopes, usually a valley or two, and scaffolding on both elevations rather than one. | 60 to 75 m² | £5,700 to £11,600 | £8,700 to £17,600 |
| Three bedroom semiThe published figure rather than a derived one, and the reason the rate on this page exists at all. | about 80 m² | £7,500 to £12,500 | £11,600 to £18,800 |
| 1930s semi with a hipped roofHips cost more than gables: more cutting, more ridge and hip work, more time on detail rather than field. | 85 to 100 m² | £8,100 to £15,500 | £12,300 to £23,500 |
| BungalowAll the roof of a house on one storey, so the area is large even though the building is small. Scaffolding is cheaper. | 90 to 110 m² | £8,600 to £17,100 | £13,100 to £25,900 |
| Four bedroom detachedUsually more than one roof: main house, plus a garage, porch or extension that may or may not be in the quote. | about 120 m² | £11,400 to £18,600 | £17,400 to £28,200 |
What you are paying for
What a re-roof quote should include
- Stripping the existing roof covering and taking it away
- Scaffolding for the duration
- New breathable underlay and treated battens
- The tiles or slates themselves
- Ridge, hip and verge, either bedded in mortar or dry fixed
- Making good around the chimney and any abutments
- Building control notification, because a full re-roof is notifiable work
Ask before you sign
What usually is not in it
- Rafters or structural timber that turns out to be rotten, which nobody can see until the roof is off
- New fascias, soffits and guttering, often quoted alongside because the scaffold is already up
- Chimney work beyond flashing, such as repointing or a rebuild
- Roof windows, whether new or replacements
- Insulation upgrades in the loft
- VAT, if the quote you are comparing came from someone not registered for it
Why two quotes differ
What moves the number
- Roof area and pitch
- The single biggest line. A steeper pitch is more roof for the same house, and steeper than about 45 degrees starts to slow the work down as well.
- What goes back on
- Concrete interlocking tile is the cheap end because it is quick to lay and easy to buy. Natural slate is dearer to buy and slower to fix. Reclaimed stone slate is a different conversation again.
- Complexity, not size
- Hips, valleys, dormers, roof windows and abutments are where the hours go. A big plain roof can be cheaper than a small complicated one.
- Scaffolding
- Usually four figures on anything above a bungalow, and driven by how many elevations need covering and how long it stands.
- What is underneath
- Battens are always renewed. Rafters usually are not, unless water has been getting in long enough to have taken them, which is only visible once the covering is off.
- Where you are
- Labour rates vary across the country, and a conservation area can dictate the material regardless of what you would have chosen.
On your street
What this looks like on Leeds roofs
Three kinds of roof cover most of this city, and they sit at three different points on the rate above.
The Victorian terraces and back-to-backs through Headingley, Hyde Park, Woodhouse, Burley and Kirkstall are natural slate on softwood battens. When those roofs go, it is almost always nail sickness: the nails corrode and the slates start letting go one at a time. The decision on those is rarely whether to re-roof, it is whether to re-hook the existing slate, which is cheaper and keeps the look, or to strip and re-cover.
The interwar and 1930s semis out through Far Headingley, Weetwood, Adel, Moortown and Cookridge are concrete interlocking tile, usually with a hipped roof, which is the row above rather than the plain semi row. Those tiles routinely outlive their mortar by decades, so a lot of these houses need ridges, hips and verges rather than a new roof at all. Getting told you need a full re-roof on one of these is worth a second opinion.
Higher up, through Horsforth, Adel, Bramhope and out towards Otley, there is genuine stone slate. It is heavy, it is graded in diminishing courses up the slope, and it cannot simply be swapped for concrete tile: the rafters were built for that weight, and parts of those streets sit in conservation areas where the material is not your choice to make. Matching reclaimed stone is the cost driver, and it is why no published guide gets close on those houses.
More on the work itself: new roofs and re-roofing,roof repairs if it turns out you do not need the lot, andchimney repointing, which is what the scaffold usually gets used for while it is up.
Got a quote you want checking?
Send me a photo of the roof and the quote. I will tell you whether the number looks right for that house, whether or not you use me.
Call 07770 902292New roof costs: common questions
How much is a new roof on a 3 bed semi in the UK?
Around £7,500 to £12,500 in concrete tile, which is the Federation of Master Builders figure for roughly 80 square metres of roof. In natural slate the same roof is closer to £11,600 to £18,800. A hipped 1930s semi sits above both, because hips take longer than gables.
What time of year is cheapest to replace a roof?
Late autumn through winter is usually the quieter season, so lead times shorten and there is more room to negotiate. The trade-off is weather: a re-roof needs the covering off for a stretch, and short wet days mean more delays. Spring and summer cost more because everybody wants the same weeks.
Can I get a government grant for a new roof in the UK?
Not for the roof itself. The energy-efficiency schemes fund insulation and heating rather than roof coverings, though a roof in poor condition can stop you qualifying for loft insulation until it is fixed. If someone offers you a grant for a new roof, read carefully whether what they are describing is finance.
Do I need a whole new roof or just repairs?
The honest test is whether the failures are isolated or spreading. A handful of slipped tiles is a repair. Slates letting go somewhere new every few months is nail sickness and the whole slope is at the end of its life, at which point repairs become a drip feed that costs more than the job. Anyone who says "whole roof" without going in the loft has not checked.
How long does a new roof take?
Three to five days for a typical house once the scaffold is up, which matches the MyJobQuote figure. Bigger or more complicated roofs run to a week or two. The scaffolding usually goes up before and comes down after, so the total disruption is longer than the days worked.
How can you tell a dodgy roofer?
The tells are in the paperwork and the pressure, not the roofing. A written quote before any work, an address you can find, public liability insurance shown on request, and photographs of what was found and done. The warning signs are a knock at the door saying they noticed your roof, a price that only holds if you decide today, cash demanded up front for materials, and a refusal to put anything in writing.
Where the published figures come from
- Federation of Master Builders, new roof cost guide
- Checkatrade, roof replacement cost guide
- MyBuilder, new roof price guide
- MyJobQuote, new roof costs
- Countrywide Roofing and Insulation, roof replacement cost
Figures were read from these guides in August 2026. They move, so treat any number here as the shape of the answer rather than a quote. The only price that binds anybody is one written down after somebody has looked at your roof.
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