Painting: Gloss to Joinery – cost per m – UK 2026 Rate Guide

Budget rate for supply & lay · typical budget rate before your adjustments

Labour, plant, materials, outputs and waste — yours to edit, as an Excel. Three free.

Rates are UK national (non-London): central London and constrained urban sites typically run dearer — adjust the labour, plant and access lines in the build-up accordingly.

Painting — gloss to joinery

per m · supply & apply

£10 – £15 / m

What is it

The supply and application of gloss decoration to softwood joinery — skirting, architrave, doors & frames — with knots spot-treated, the timber primed, undercoated and finished with one-to-two coats of gloss or satinwood, brush-applied and de-nibbed between coats, priced per metre of run. A trade undercoat plus a quick-dry gloss or satinwood is the mainstream UK budget joinery finish. This rate prices the JOINERY gloss only — the emulsion to walls & ceilings, external decoration, spray application and wallpaper are separate rates, and the joinery itself is supplied & fixed by the carpentry rates. The rate carries three operations:

Prep & knot — light abrasion and de-nib, filling of gaps & nail holes and shellac/acrylic knotting spot-applied to knots.
Prime & undercoat — a primer to bare/prepared softwood and an undercoat, brush-applied and cut in, de-nibbed once dry.
Gloss coats — one-to-two coats of gloss or satinwood, brush-applied to an even, hard-wearing finish ready for handover.

Rate range by gloss system

Undercoat + gloss£10 – £13 / m

Undercoat + gloss (standard)£11 – £14 / m

Durable solvent-based system£11 – £15 / m

Budget rate per m.

3 key cost drivers

Surface condition, coats & profile

New or sound prepared joinery taking a knot, prime, undercoat and gloss runs to a set output; heavy prep, stripping back failed paint, a moulded or large-section profile, an extra gloss coat and restricted access all slow the painter. The London & South-East market runs dearer. It is the key driver of the labour per m; region rides this note, not a dropdown.

Gloss system & finish

Priced on a trade undercoat-plus-gloss/satinwood system. The published band already spans the usual trade coating choices — a contract primer-undercoat-and-gloss through a durable solvent-based system — and since labour dominates the m rate, the coating spec moves the figure only modestly, well inside the band. There is no product-scenario switch here, so no calculator: the band is the answer.

Location

London and the South East typically add around 20% to labour.

Estimator

Budget rate generator

£11 – £14 / m

Covers knot, prime, undercoat & gloss to joinery, the coatings, sundries, the painter and O&P · excl. emulsion to walls & ceilings, external, spray, wallpaper & VAT

Exclusions

Lifting & material distribution — telehandler / forklift, hoist and site-distribution labour (an attendance, in main-contractor prelims)
The emulsion to walls & ceilings (a painter’s rate per m²), external masonry & render decoration (a separate exterior rate) & external woodwork, spray application and wallpaper / lining paper
The supply & fix of the joinery itself (the skirting, door & staircase carpentry rates), major stripping-back of failed paint, large making-good and access / scaffold
Scaffold supply (usually in preliminaries)
Preliminaries — main-contractor site set-up, management & welfare
VAT