How much does a new bathroom cost?
In south London, a full bathroom renovation costs £5,000 to £9,000 excluding VAT and the suite — rip-out, first-fix plumbing and electrics, waterproofing, tiling and fit-out. A like-for-like swap with no layout change starts around £3,500. National averages of £2,000–£4,000 are labour-only figures for a straight swap.
The reason quoted figures vary so wildly is that 'a new bathroom' covers two different jobs. A like-for-like swap — new suite in the same positions, walls patched, no rewiring — is the £3,500–£5,000 job. A renovation that moves the toilet, converts bath to shower, re-tiles floor to ceiling and brings the electrics up to current zones is £5,000–£9,000, and the difference is invisible work: waste runs, tanking, certification.
The suite itself is the smallest variable. A perfectly good bath, basin and WC can be had for £600–£1,200 from the online warehouses; a premium set runs £2,500+. But the labour around them is identical, which is why we tell clients to spend the marginal pound on tiling and brassware — the things you touch and see daily — rather than the porcelain.
London sits at the top of any national range, and south London's housing stock adds its own costs: Victorian back-addition bathrooms need insulation and stack work that a 1990s estate house does not, and hard water across the whole patch means scale-resistant valves are worth specifying from day one.
For budgeting: take the range for your job type, add VAT, add 10 percent contingency in a pre-1940s house, and treat any quote that undercuts the market by a third as a list of things that will be discovered later.
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