Pitched Roof Cost: Prices for New Roofs & Repairs (2026)

Roofing prices

I will be keeping this part of my website as up to date as possible with the roofing prices charged for common roofing jobs. These will be the prices on average that I charge for various roofing jobs, based in the Midlands in the U.K. Please keep in mind when viewing these figures that it is incredibly difficult to give accurate roofing costs, as roofs vary not only in materials used, but height, location, accessibility, scaffolding requirements and so on.

Roof repair prices

Obviously roof repairs come in many shapes and sizes, the raw material cost can be high when working with lead for instance, so I charge my labour price & material cost at a trade price to the customer. Here is roughly what I charge, and what you can reasonably expect to pay a competent roofer for his services depending on location and overheads.

• Small roof repair – This can be a couple of slipped slates or a broken tile, maybe a disconnected guttering or broken pipe joint. The material cost is normally low and supplied for free, I would charge £50 for most jobs like this with short distance locations.
• Roof repair lasting ¹/₂ day – Most small jobs fall into this category, £150 to £200. Low cost sundries are supplied for free. Quite often a small job will ruin the usable time left in a day to do another job, other than a service call or very small job.
• Roof repair lasting 1 day or more – A one day roof repair is 70% of my workload and I charge about £300 per day. Sundries are free but materials are charged at trade prices to the customer.
• New flat roof – See best flat roof to see the most common flat roofs compared, and see Flat roof costs to see the price per metre.
• Velux window or similar – Usually one days labour to put in a large window or two small roof windows may be possible in one day, into a tiled roof. Roof windows into slate are more time consuming usually. See our roof window page.
• Velux sun tube or similar – Exactly the same as for a Velux window, see the Sun tunnel page.
• Bay window roof – Replaced in either lead or fibreglass, I charge for either the full day or a half day rate plus material cost. So expect to pay between £250 to £450 on average for fibreglass, or £200 to £300 plus the cost of the new milled lead if you want a new lead roof. See our Bay window roof article for links to lead and fibreglass.
• Gutter cleaning or guttering repair – Always done for free on the completion of a job where I have caused debris to foul the guttering, or £50 as small roof repair unless access is high, difficult or requires scaffolding, in which case the half day and full day roof repair prices apply.
• Unblocking downpipes – This depends on difficulty, some have a tennis ball in the top that can be tossed to the ground in 10 seconds, or the whole pipe may need dismantling and cleaning. Prices range from free if you are elderly, then upwards depending on difficulty.
• A new roof on a house – See the article listed below for new pitched roof prices, also see new roof costs for an explanation of factors that determine the price and quality of a new roof.
• New lead valley or new fibreglass valley – A lead new valley replacement is normally charged at the rate of a roof repair lasting one day as listed above. If new milled lead is required to be supplied by myself, this is at the additional cost of the lead at trade prices. A fibreglass GRP valley is obviously cheaper to buy but fitting remains the same cost.
• Fitting a roof vent – One or two simple to fit roof tile vents could be £100  labour + the cost of the vent (typically £30 each). Slate vents van take longer and be more expensive because of it. For more vents than just one or two, see the roof repair charges for a half or 1 day, then and add the cost of each roof vent individually.

Footnote to prices – Prices charged by roofers are not the same why? What I have tried to give you are basic prices I charge for doing these simple tasks in the Midlands, in the U.K. This will hopefully give you some sort of idea of the cost of roofing jobs. Keep in mind that the ‘profit’ figure after material cost isn’t pure profit for a roofer, insurances, advertising, staff, premises to store materials and vehicles all cost money that is not visible on paper and will vary from roofer to roofer. Be sure to read the ‘new roof costs’ article also to give you some idea of the variables of the roofing trade.

Pitched roof replacement estimate

Ok, lets start with a new tiled roof. We will assume that your old roof covering is no good and is not reusable in any way, and now resides in a skip. You’ve opted for the popular and common Redland 49 roof tile or similar such as the Marley Ludlow plus, or their bigger brothers the Redland Renown or Marley Ludlow major.

Similar tiles – Give or take a few pounds the covering cost of these tiles, or similar by other manufactures will allow us to flesh out some price comparisons. Let’s also assume all of the properties are fairly standard two storey houses with good access, and no huge structures like conservatories to scaffold over, or unusual roof shaped roofs.

Estimating a new roof

Here is a quick example of how I would estimate for a new roof, I’ll use a basic terrace house as an example. Firstly I calculate the square meterage, this can be done exactly by measurement from the top of a ladder, or from the floor if a quick ‘guestimate’ is required.

Square metres of a roof – All roofs break down into a series of manageable chunks where the amount of tiles required can be worked out from the final square metre figure.

Click pic to enlarge

 
Now we know we require 55m² of tiles to tile the roof including a 3m² allowance for breakages. Using Redland 49 tiles at the correct overlaps, it works out to 15.7 tiles per square metre X the 55m² we require, which means that 864 roof tiles are needed to tile this roof.

Any roofing supplier will tell you the amount of roof tiles and batten for a given tile if asked, as long as you supply them with an accurate m² figure.

Terraced house new roof price

Average roof area of a mid terrace house is 55m² so the price of a new terraced roof is about £ 4000 this is how I came up with this figure.

• Normal grade tanalised roofing battens (tiling lath) £100
• New milled lead valley plus sundries £100
• New milled lead flashings £100
• Reasonable quality breather membrane £100
• Nails / fixings £20
• 4 low profile roof vents £120
• Ridge tiles £90
• Skip £150
• Scaffolding £700
• Roof tiles £750
• Labour – 1 Weeks work for two men

Obviously I have plucked this job straight from thin air, but you can see the process of how the roofing estimate is formed and how you could price up your own roof. The quality of materials and costs could go up or down with specification as could the profit margin for the roofing contractor. Don’t forget the hidden overheads of any roofing firm like, advertising, insurance, fuel, wages, storage premises, vehicle and machinery running costs, down time due to rain…

3 bedroom semi detached roof price

Average roof area of a semi detached is 75m² so the material cost of tiles and ridge tiles goes up about 35% and so may the cost of the scaffolding. There could well be two lead valleys if the property has a gable end, but lead price does not increase because other flashings required on a terraced house are not needed on a semi. So the cost of a new roof for a semi is about £ 5000 – the time taken is again about 1 week.

Semi detached roof area – Some semi detached houses are a simple front and back ‘ up & over ‘ roof whilst others incorporate a gable end type design. A four bedroom semi is normally similar in design but on a slightly larger scale.

4 bedroom detached house roof price

The average roof area of a detached house is around 100m² and has a 25% increase in materials like tiles, ridge tiles, batten and undersarking over the 3 bedroom semi detached house. Again though lead costs may stay the same, but scaffolding costs will be up 25%, and more roof vents may be required. So the price for a detached semi is about £ 7000 give or take, as the labour now takes 1 – 2 weeks.

Price for a bungalow roof

Just because a bungalow is only one storey it won’t make a great deal of difference to the cost of a new bungalow roof, it will be slightly cheaper, but this is only reflected in the cost of the scaffolding. The scaffolding may be only ‘one lift’ (one level of scaffolding) but it still needs to be transported, erected and have all the correct safety rails and kicking boards, so it won’t be a big saving. The price for a bungalow roof can probably be worked out roughly from the square meterage figure given in the examples above and comparing the prices for the same sized roof area.

Bungalow roof estimate – Quite often a bungalow roof is a simple ‘up and down’ roof, sometimes with a ‘L’ shape to accommodate a gable end feature. Estimate your square metre figure by breaking the roof into easy rectangle’s, and apply the square metre result to the listed examples above for other property types.

Price for a new slate roof

This part of estimating can get a little tricky, there are many things that can factor in when pricing for a new slate roof, such as…

• You may have all the slate already on your roof in great condition so it could be used again at say a 90% rate.
• If the condition is not good what percentage is viable to re-use ?
• You may need a full roof of slate, it comes in different qualities and at a different cost from all over the world.
• The size of the slate not only determines cost but also man hours, large slates can cover four or five times quicker that small slates. Labour is a big cost.
• Small slates means more timber batten or slating lath, big slates need less.

You can see that if you combine these factors with the considerations as outlined above and in roofs costs, it is almost an impossible task to guess a roof estimate worth giving. But if you’re really keen for an rough estimate I would double the prices I have just given in the tiled roof section, given as standard welsh slate can cost between 30 pence to well over £ 1 per slate depending on the roof. Prepare for a large margin of error though.

Also see…

• New roof costs – Factors that determine price and quality of a new pitched roof
• Find a trusted tradesmen – How to find a good local roofing contractor
• Flat roof costs – See current flat roof prices
• Best flat roof – Compare the most common best flat roofs
• How to tile a roof – We show you how it’s done