Emergency help & costs
Plumber Cost per Hour in London
Published
In London a plumber typically costs about £75 to £120 an hour for daytime work, and firms that specialise in emergency and heating jobs mostly publish rates between £100 and £180. Nights, weekends and bank holidays cost more with most firms. How the first hour and part hours are counted matters as much as the rate.
What does a plumber charge per hour in London?
The figures below are rough market ranges based on the rate cards London firms put on their own websites and national price guides. They describe what the market charges, not our prices, and individual firms sit well outside them in both directions.
- Booked daytime plumbing, weekdays: roughly £75 to £120 an hour.
- Emergency and heating specialists that publish a rate: mostly £100 to £180 an hour, sometimes with VAT on top.
- Evenings and Saturdays: often around one and a half times the daytime rate.
- Overnight, Sundays and bank holidays: often around double the daytime rate with firms that charge a premium.
London costs more than the rest of the country for reasons that land on the hourly rate: travel time across town, parking and the Congestion Charge, and higher overheads for vans, insurance and storage.
How is the hour actually counted?
Two firms with the same headline rate can produce very different bills, because the rules for counting time differ. When you ask how much a plumber should cost per hour, ask these as well:
- Is there a minimum charge? Many firms bill a full first hour even if the job takes fifteen minutes.
- After the first hour, is time billed per hour, per half hour or per quarter hour? Rounding up to the next full hour can add most of an hour to a short overrun.
- Does the clock include travel, or a trip to the merchant for a part? Some firms bill the time spent collecting parts; others absorb it.
- Is the rate quoted with or without VAT? A business turning over more than £90,000 a year must charge VAT at 20 per cent.
A worked example: what a short job really costs
Take an illustrative firm charging £90 an hour plus VAT and billing every started hour in full. The job is a leaking isolating valve under a kitchen sink, and the plumber is on site for 1 hour 20 minutes.
The first hour costs £90. The extra 20 minutes rounds up to a second full hour, another £90. That makes £180 before VAT and £216 with it, plus the valve itself, which is a few pounds at a merchant.
Now take a firm with a higher headline rate of £110 an hour that bills by the quarter hour after the first. The same 80 minutes costs £110 plus two quarter hours at £27.50 each, which is £165 before VAT and £198 with it. The dearer-looking rate produces the smaller bill, purely because of how it counts time, which is why the rules above are worth asking about.
Parts sit outside the hourly rate. Most firms add a markup to what they paid at the merchant, which is fair for carrying stock on the van, but it varies widely, so ask for parts to be itemised on the invoice.
For how quotes are put together more generally, see how plumbers quote.
Hourly rate, fixed price or day rate: which is better?
Each suits a different kind of job. Knowing which one fits yours stops you paying for uncertainty you do not have.
- Fixed price suits known, contained jobs: a tap cartridge, a toilet refill valve, a radiator valve on an accessible pipe. You carry no risk if it takes longer.
- Hourly suits jobs where nobody can know the size in advance: tracing a hidden leak, a pipe under floorboards, or intermittent faults that need testing. A fixed price here would be padded to cover the worst case.
- Day rates suit planned work such as a bathroom refit or a run of new pipework, and are rarely offered for emergencies.
A fair middle ground on an emergency is a diagnosis first, then a fixed price for the repair once the fault is known. That is how we work: the repair price is agreed with you on site before any work starts.
Why a heating engineer costs more than a plumber
Anyone paid to work on gas appliances or pipework in a home must be on the Gas Safe Register under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. Registration means ongoing assessment and fees, and it limits the pool of people who can do the work, so boiler and gas-side jobs usually carry a higher hourly rate than general plumbing. You can check an engineer on the Gas Safe Register before they start.
Plumbing that only touches water needs no gas registration, but it must still comply with the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999. Plumbers who belong to an approved contractor scheme, listed on the WaterSafe register, can certify certain work as compliant themselves. That is a better sign of competence than a low rate.
What an emergency hour costs, and how ours works
Out of hours, the hourly rate is only part of the story. Many firms add an attendance fee on top of a premium hourly rate, and the combination is what makes a 2am bill a shock. Plumber call-out charges explained breaks that side down, and night and weekend plumber costs covers what changes after hours.
We do not publish an hourly rate. The call-out is £60 at any hour, anywhere in London and inside the M25, and the engineer tells you what has failed before quoting a price for the repair. The repair price is agreed with you on site before any work starts, so the clock is never running on something you have not agreed to. Gas work is carried out by Gas Safe registered engineers. For how the visit works, see our 24-hour plumber service, or leak repairs if water is escaping now.
Questions people ask
How much should a plumber cost per hour in London?
For booked daytime work, roughly £75 to £120 an hour is typical. Emergency and heating specialists that publish rates mostly charge £100 to £180, and many firms charge more at night, on Sundays and on bank holidays.
Do plumbers charge for travel time?
Some do, some fold it into the attendance fee. Ask whether the clock starts when the plumber leaves or when they arrive, and whether a trip to the merchant for a part is billed.
Is it cheaper to pay a fixed price or by the hour?
For a small, well-defined job a fixed price is usually safer. For a fault nobody can size in advance, hourly is often fairer because a fixed price has to allow for the worst case.
Why do quotes for the same job vary so much?
Because the rate is only one input. The minimum charge, how part hours are rounded, whether travel and parts runs are billed, the markup on parts and VAT all differ between firms. Compare the likely total for your job rather than the hourly figure, and get the counting rules in writing before work starts.
Do plumbers charge VAT?
Only if they are VAT registered, which is compulsory once turnover passes £90,000 a year. Many sole traders are not. Always ask whether a quoted rate includes VAT, because 20 per cent is a large difference.