Scaffolding cost calculator
Scaffolding costs £450 to £900 for Chimney tower or one elevation; £850 to £1,600 for Two-storey house and £1,600 to £2,800 for Full wrap. Set the options below to price your own, adjusted for where you live.
Work out what scaffolding costs for your job. Pick how much of the house it needs to cover, add any weeks beyond the standard hire period, and tick a pavement licence if the scaffold will stand on the road. Gives you a price range for your region.
Scaffolding cost calculator
Set it up to match your job. Everything updates as you change it, and nothing is sent anywhere.
Built from the same figures as our scaffolding guide: £450 to £900 for a chimney tower or one elevation, £850 to £1,600 for the front and back of a two-storey house, and £1,600 to £2,800 for a full wrap around a detached or three-storey house. Those prices include an initial hire period, normally six to eight weeks, which covers most roofing, rendering or painting jobs. Extra weeks after that run £30 to £75 a week. A council licence costs roughly £40 to £150 and is needed whenever the scaffold stands on a public pavement or road; scaffold entirely on your own drive or garden needs no licence. Regional multipliers are applied to the scaffold itself but not to the council licence, because that is a fixed local-authority fee rather than labour. Not priced here, because it varies far too much: bay windows, conservatories and sloping ground all need bridging or tailored work, and a scaffold over a neighbour's garden needs their permission first.
Scaffolding cost by region
| Scale of scaffold | UK average | London | North / Scotland / Wales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chimney tower or one elevation | £450 to £900 | £600 to £1,150 | £425 to £850 |
| Two-storey house, front and back | £850 to £1,600 | £1,100 to £2,100 | £800 to £1,450 |
| Full wrap, detached or three storey | £1,600 to £2,800 | £2,100 to £3,600 | £1,450 to £2,600 |
Guide prices for scaffolding, before any extras. UK guide prices reviewed June 2026, not quotes. Set the calculator above to your own job to add the extras.
What you are actually paying for
A scaffolding price is mostly labour and time, not tube. Erecting and dismantling are the two big costs and they happen whatever the hire length, which is why a two-week job and a six-week job often cost the same. The quote you get is normally a package: put it up, leave it for an initial period of six to eight weeks, take it down.
That structure explains something people find odd, which is that asking for the scaffold for a shorter time rarely saves anything. What does cost more is going over. Extra weeks are charged at roughly £30 to £75, so a job that overruns by a month adds £120 to £300 rather than a proportion of the original figure.
Height and frontage do most of the pricing
Every extra lift, meaning every storey, and every extra metre of frontage means more tube, more boards and more time. A three-storey scaffold around a whole house is several times the price of a single-elevation tower, and the jump is not linear because the higher lifts need more ties and more bracing.
This is why the honest answer to "how much is scaffolding" is a range rather than a rate per metre. A scaffolder quotes off a look at the house: how many elevations, how high, what is in the way at ground level, and whether the lorry can get near enough to unload.
When you need a council licence
Any scaffold standing on a public pavement or road needs a highways licence from the council, because it is occupying part of the highway. They run for a set period and cost roughly £40 to £150 depending on the council and the length of time. Scaffold that sits entirely on your own drive or garden needs nothing.
The licence is normally arranged by the scaffolding company rather than by you, and a reputable firm will not put steel on a pavement without one. Check whose job it is in the quote, since an unlicensed scaffold can be ordered down and you would be paying for it twice.
When a tower will do instead
For low work, a mobile alloy tower is a genuine alternative and a fraction of the price: roughly £30 to £60 a day or £120 to £250 a week to hire. It suits jobs up to about six metres, which covers guttering, fascia painting and upper-window work on most houses.
It stops being sensible the moment you need to carry materials up, work along a whole elevation, or stay up there for weeks. A tower gives you one small working platform that has to be moved constantly, and moving a tower repeatedly is exactly the sort of thing that ends in a fall.
Common questions
How much does scaffolding cost in the UK?
Roughly £450 to £900 for a chimney tower or one elevation, £850 to £1,600 for the front and back of a two-storey house, and £1,600 to £2,800 for a full wrap around a detached or three-storey property, with £950 the typical figure. Those include an initial hire of six to eight weeks. London runs about 30% above the UK average.
How long does a scaffolding quote cover?
Normally an initial hire period of six to eight weeks, which is enough for most roofing, rendering or painting work. If the job overruns, extra time is charged by the week at typically £30 to £75 for a house scaffold, depending on size and region. Because erecting and dismantling are the bulk of the cost, a shorter hire rarely reduces the price much.
Do I need a licence for scaffolding?
Only if it stands on a public pavement or road, in which case you need a highways licence from the council at roughly £40 to £150 depending on the authority and the duration. Scaffold sitting entirely on your own drive or garden needs no licence. The scaffolding company usually arranges it, but confirm that in writing, because an unlicensed scaffold on the highway can be ordered down.
Why is scaffolding so expensive for a small job?
Because most of the cost is erecting and dismantling, which happens whether the job takes two days or six weeks. A chimney repair needing a tower at £450 to £900 can easily cost more in access than in repair work. It is why doing several jobs in one visit is worth planning: re-roofing, new fascias and repointing a chimney all need the same scaffold, and paying for it once instead of three times is a real saving.
Can I put up scaffolding myself?
You should not put up a scaffold yourself. Erecting tube-and-fitting scaffold is a trained trade for good reason and the failure mode is someone falling. A mobile alloy tower is the DIY-legal option at about £30 to £60 a day, and it suits work up to roughly six metres. Beyond that, or for anything you will be on for days, use a scaffolder who is CISRS-qualified and insured.
These are independent guide prices based on typical UK jobs in 2026. Your actual cost depends on your property, spec, access and where you live. Always get at least three written quotes before committing. These are independent Costwise guide prices, reviewed June 2026, not quotes and not a survey of real quotes. A real price depends on access, condition and what the job actually involves, so use this to sanity-check what you are told and always get three written quotes.