Why Is Kitchen Fitting So Expensive?

For customers

It's a fair question. You may have already spent a substantial amount on the kitchen itself and then receive an installation quotation for several thousand pounds on top. When you look at a room full of cabinets, it's understandable to wonder how fitting them can cost so much.

The answer is that what we casually call “kitchen fitting” can involve considerably more than fitting cabinets. Depending on the project, there may be removal of the old kitchen, preparation work, plumbing, electrics, appliances, worktops, waste, plastering, tiling, flooring and several different trades needing to work in the right order. Somebody may also need to plan and coordinate all of that while taking responsibility for getting the finished installation over the line. Once you look at it that way, the fitting price starts to make a little more sense.

The installation price isn't the fitter's wage

This is probably one of the biggest misunderstandings around trade pricing. If an installer is in your home for ten days and the installation costs £5,000, it's very easy to divide £5,000 by ten and assume the fitter is earning £500 every day. That isn't how it works.

Before your project starts, they may already have visited the property, surveyed the room, looked through plans, produced a quotation, spoken with you and arranged other trades. During the installation there can be material collections, waste runs, calls, paperwork and time spent coordinating the different parts of the project. Afterwards there may be another visit for final adjustments, damaged products or something that couldn't be completed until another supplier had finished.

The business also has costs that exist whether it's fitting your kitchen that day or not: vehicles, fuel, specialist tools, insurance, accountancy, software, training, waste disposal and general administration all need paying for. Only after those things have been covered does the person doing the work get to earn their living and the business hopefully make some profit. Profit isn't a dirty word. A business that doesn't make any eventually stops being a business.

You only see part of the time involved

A tradesperson can work five days a week without being able to invoice customers for five full days every week. There are quotations to produce, surveys to carry out, materials to collect, cancellations, holidays, sickness, maintenance, administration and gaps between jobs. Good businesses have to build the cost of that non-chargeable time into the work they do charge for.

The same is true in plenty of other businesses. When you pay a solicitor, accountant, hairdresser or garage, you're not only paying for the exact minutes somebody spends directly in front of you. The price also has to support everything required to provide the service in the first place. Kitchen installation is no different.

It may involve several different trades

A larger kitchen installation can become a small building project surprisingly quickly. There may be a kitchen fitter, plumber, electrician, gas engineer, plasterer, tiler, flooring installer and specialist worktop company involved. Some businesses provide several of those services themselves, while others bring in people they work with regularly. Either way, those costs have to sit somewhere in the total.

This is also one of the reasons two kitchen fitting quotes can be dramatically different while both appear to be for the same kitchen. One may include plumbing, electrics, waste and making good, while another may be little more than fitting the cabinets. The total is only meaningful once you understand the scope.

Sometimes you're paying for someone to organise the job as well

This is easily overlooked. If an installation company arranges the plumber and electrician, tells them when they're needed, checks that everything is ready for the next stage and gets them back if something goes wrong, you're buying coordination as well as their physical work.

You can absolutely arrange trades yourself and in some circumstances you may save money by doing so, but you're also taking on some of that responsibility.

As I've said elsewhere, in nearly 30 years of running kitchen installations I found that when customers introduced their own friend, relative or trade into the programme, it very rarely ran quite as smoothly as they expected. That wasn't necessarily because the person was bad at their job. More often it was simply timing.

If your own plumber is supposed to finish something on Tuesday and doesn't get there until Thursday, the kitchen fitter may not be able to continue on Wednesday as planned. That can mean wasted time, a rearranged programme and, depending on what has been agreed, potentially another charge for a wasted visit or additional time.

So when you compare the installation company's plumbing price with what somebody you know will charge, make sure you're comparing the same thing. One may simply be doing the plumbing. The other may be supplying, organising and taking responsibility for that entire part of the installation.

Experience is part of what you're buying

Good tradespeople often make difficult work look fairly straightforward. An experienced installer may walk into a room and immediately spot a service problem, a design issue or something that needs changing before it causes trouble later. They know the order things need to happen in because they've done it hundreds of times before, and they'll generally have dealt with most of the problems a kitchen can throw at them. That experience has taken years to build.

You're not simply paying somebody for how quickly they can screw cabinets to a wall. You're paying for the judgement that tells them where those cabinets need to go, what needs to happen first and what to do when the room doesn't quite match the plan. It also means a more experienced fitter may sometimes complete the same job faster than somebody less experienced. That doesn't automatically mean they should be cheaper. Being better at something shouldn't make your experience worth less.

Part of the price is responsibility

If an installer gives you a fixed quotation for a clearly defined job, they're taking some risk themselves. They have to work out how long the project should take, arrange the right people and allow enough in the price for the normal things that happen on installations. If they simply underestimate how long their own work will take, they generally can't keep adding extra days to the bill because they priced it badly.

Likewise, if one of the people they've brought into the job causes an issue, you reasonably expect the installation company to deal with it. That responsibility is worth something. It's one of the reasons a managed installation may cost more than collecting several individual trades yourself.

A higher price doesn't automatically mean better

None of this means you should simply accept any price you're given. An expensive fitter isn't automatically a good fitter and a cheaper fitter isn't automatically a bad one. You should still look at reviews, track record, insurance, qualifications where relevant and the quality of the quotation itself. Make sure the work is clearly described, you understand what is included and excluded, and the payment arrangements make sense.

If one quotation is significantly cheaper than another, ask why. Sometimes there will be a perfectly good reason. The business may have lower overheads, work very efficiently or simply want the job. But sometimes the difference is that the cheaper quotation isn't actually offering the same thing. That's why I would always compare the job first and the number second.

You can ask what you're paying for without needing every penny broken down

There's nothing wrong with asking an installer to explain their price. You should know what the job includes, what it doesn't include and who is responsible for the different parts.

What you don't necessarily need is the business's internal costing for every tube of silicone, length of timber or hour of labour. A clear quotation and an item-by-item account of how somebody makes their profit are not the same thing.

Can you reduce the installation cost?

Sometimes, yes. Simplifying the project can reduce labour. Keeping plumbing and appliances in similar locations may mean fewer service alterations. You may decide to do your own decorating or take responsibility for another part of the work.

Just be careful that saving money on one line doesn't create cost somewhere else. If you remove the installer's plumber and bring in your own, for example, make sure that person can genuinely be there when needed. A kitchen installation relies on different jobs happening in the right order, and delays in one area can quickly affect everything around it. A saving is only a saving if the overall job still works.

So is kitchen fitting expensive?

It certainly can be a substantial part of the cost of a new kitchen. But the fairest way to judge it is to look at what you're actually asking somebody to provide.

If you're buying ten days of cabinet fitting, that's one thing. If you're buying the removal of the existing kitchen, a complete installation, several trades, waste, coordination, problem solving and somebody taking overall responsibility for the result, that's a very different service.

Understanding that doesn't mean you should stop questioning prices. It simply helps you compare them properly.

Looking for an installer?

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Profiles are provided by individual members, so you should still carry out your own checks, confirm relevant insurance and qualifications where required and make sure the work, price and payment arrangements are clearly agreed before appointing anyone.

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