How Much Does It Cost to Rewire a House? UK Costs by Size
Updated: 3 hours ago
Published UK cost guides put most house rewires somewhere between about £3,000 and £12,500, depending mainly on the size of the property. For a three-bedroom house, Checkatrade's June 2026 guide gives roughly £4,450 to £8,000 and Rated People's April 2026 guide roughly £4,500 to £6,500. These are UK market ranges, not our prices: the real figure for your home comes from a written quote after someone has looked at the wiring, the consumer unit and how easy the building is to work in.
Cost to rewire a 3 bed house (and other sizes)
The number of rooms is the best single predictor of price, because it sets how many circuits, sockets and light points need new cable. Checkatrade's typical UK figures (last updated June 2026) are:
Two-bedroom house: an average of about £4,800
Three-bedroom house: roughly £4,450 to £8,000
Four-bedroom house: roughly £6,080 to £9,380
Five-bedroom house: roughly £7,500 to £12,500
Other guides land in a similar but not identical place. Rated People's April 2026 guide puts a standard UK home at £3,000 to £8,000, and Homebuilding's older 2023 guide gave lower figures again. Treat any single table as a rough guide, and check whether a quote includes VAT.
A three-bed semi sits in the middle of that spread for a reason. It usually has two floors of lighting, a socket circuit on each floor, a cooker circuit, a shower circuit and often an outside supply, and it can go either way on access. Suspended timber floors upstairs make cable runs quicker; solid ground floors and plastered solid walls slow things down.
How much to rewire a flat
Flats are generally cheaper because there are fewer rooms and usually a single floor. Checkatrade gives about £3,000 to £4,800 for a one-bedroom flat and about £3,800 to £5,800 for a two-bedroom flat. Concrete floors and ceilings in purpose-built blocks can cancel out some of that saving, because cables have to run in chased walls or surface trunking rather than through joists.
What pushes a rewire quote up or down
Size sets the starting point, but these factors decide where in the band a job lands. When we price house rewiring, these are the things we look at during the survey:
Access: loft space, lifting floorboards and wall construction. Chasing solid brick takes longer than dropping cable through a stud wall.
Occupied or empty: working room by room around a family adds days. An empty house is faster.
Specification: extra sockets, USB outlets, outside lights, dimmers, a dedicated circuit for a future EV charger, and the finish of the accessories all add cost.
Consumer unit: almost every full rewire includes a new board. Checkatrade's June 2026 guide puts an average consumer unit replacement at around £485, with smaller homes from about £350 and larger ones up to about £800; Homebuilding suggests £400 to £600.
Condition and unknowns: older houses can hide previous DIY work, missing earthing or damaged cable that only shows once floors are up.
Fire detection: a rewire is a sensible time to fit mains-powered interlinked smoke and heat alarms, which should be priced as a separate line.
Full rewire or partial rewire?
A partial rewire replaces the wiring on some circuits or in part of the house, such as one floor or an extension, and leaves sound circuits in place. It costs less than a full rewire, but the wiring that stays must be in good condition and compatible with the new work, which is the main test for whether you can do a partial rewire at all.
Adding a new circuit or replacing the consumer unit on its own is not a partial rewire. Both are separate, smaller jobs. If an inspection shows the cable is fine and the problem is an old fuse box with no RCD protection, a board change may be all that is needed, which is a fraction of the cost of rewiring.
What a rewiring quote usually leaves out
Making good is the item most people forget. Rewiring means chasing walls and lifting floors, and a standard electrician's quote usually covers filling chases and refitting boards but not plastering, reskimming or redecorating. Homebuilding and Checkatrade both make the same point: beyond basic sealing around new accessories, plastering and redecorating are usually a separate cost.
Other things that are often priced separately:
Plastering and decorating after the chases are filled
Carpet lifting and refitting
Moving the consumer unit or the incoming supply (Checkatrade's consumer unit guide puts moving the unit and the incoming mains cable at £2,000 or more)
Extra circuits for new appliances, garden rooms or outbuildings
Building control fees, if the electrician is not registered to self-certify
How long a rewire takes, and why that matters for price
Labour is the biggest part of any rewire, so the programme drives the price: Checkatrade gives 4 to 15 days depending on size, with a three-bedroom house commonly taking 6 to 10. Our guide to how long a rewire takes breaks the days down by property size and shows what adds time.
Testing and certification are part of the price
A rewire is notifiable work under Part P of the Building Regulations in England, because it involves new circuits and usually a new consumer unit. It has to be done by a registered electrician who can self-certify the work under Part P, or notified to building control before work starts. At the end you should receive an Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC) to BS 7671 and a Building Regulations compliance certificate. A quote that leaves these out is not cheaper; it is incomplete.
Is it worth paying for an EICR first?
Yes, if you are not sure whether you need a rewire at all. An Electrical Installation Condition Report tests every circuit and tells you whether the installation needs full replacement, partial work or just remedial repairs. Checkatrade gives typical EICR costs from about £150 for a one-bed flat to about £375 for a five-bed house, and we break down what an EICR costs separately. It is a small spend next to a rewire, and it stops you paying for work the house does not need. Our EICR reporting service covers homes, rentals and commercial premises.
How to compare rewiring quotes
Quotes vary more in scope than in price, and comparing them line by line avoids the most common mistakes to avoid when hiring an electrician to rewire. Put them side by side and check:
The number of sockets, light points and circuits included, room by room
The consumer unit type (RCBO boards cost more than dual RCD boards but isolate faults circuit by circuit)
Whether smoke and heat alarms are included
Who fills chases and who plasters, and to what standard
That the EIC, Part P notification and compliance certificate are included
How many days on site, and whether the home stays usable
Rewiring cost questions, answered
Is it cheaper to rewire an empty house?
Usually, yes. With furniture out and nobody living there, floors can be lifted and walls chased in one pass, which takes fewer days than working room by room. If you are between purchase and moving in, that is the cheapest window.
Can you spread the cost by rewiring in stages?
You can, by doing the highest-risk circuits and the consumer unit first and the rest later. Staging spreads payments, but the total is often higher because of extra visits and repeated making good.
Does a commercial rewire cost the same as a house?
Commercial rewires are priced on survey rather than bedroom count. Offices, shops and workshops may need three-phase supplies, fire alarm interfaces and out-of-hours working, all of which change the price.
Getting a real figure for your home
National ranges help you budget, but the only figure that counts is one written for your house. As an electrician in Shifnal, we rewire homes and businesses across Wolverhampton, Telford, Shropshire and Staffordshire, and every quote follows a survey of the wiring, board and access. If you want a written price, get in touch and we will arrange a visit.
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