Staircase Flight: Supply & Fix – cost per flight – 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.

Staircase flight (supply & fix)

per m² · supply & lay

£826 – £3140 / nr

What is it

The supply and fixing of a bought-in manufactured straight staircase flight — a closed-string softwood/MDF flight (around 13 risers to suit a standard floor-to-floor, treads and risers, with the newels, handrail and spindles supplied with a standard flight) offered up to a prepared, trimmed opening, the strings cut and scribed to the trimmer and wall, the flight levelled, wedged and glue-blocked, fixed off and made good — priced per flight (nr). A mainstream softwood/MDF straight flight is the UK budget default. This rate prices the FLIGHT supplied and fixed only — the structural trimming of the opening, the strip-out of an existing stair, the balustrade to landings and the finishes and decoration are separate rates. The rate carries three operations:

Offer up & scribe — the manufactured flight offered up to the prepared opening, the closed strings cut and scribed to the trimmer and the wall.
Level, wedge & fix — the flight levelled, wedged and glue-blocked, then fixed off to the trimmer and wall.
Set & make good — the newels, handrail and spindles supplied with the flight set, and the flight scribed and made good, ready for balustrade and finishes.

Rate range by staircase spec

Space-saver flight£826 – £1064 / nr

Softwood/MDF straight flight£924 – £1191 / nr

Oak / hardwood & winder£2436 – £3140 / nr

Budget rate per m².

3 key cost drivers

Staircase complexity & access

A standard straight flight to a plumb, prepared opening fits fastest; a winder or quarter-turn flight, a long rise, or a restricted stairwell with an awkward lift-in add fitting time. It is a key driver of the labour per flight.

Staircase spec & grade

Three genuinely different manufactured flights: a space-saver flight, a softwood/MDF straight flight (the default) and an oak/hardwood flight with a winder. Each is a distinct BoQ item — different material and geometry, different unit price — so the control switches product, not price grade.

Location

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

Estimator

Budget rate generator

Staircase spec & grade

£924 – £1191 / nr

Covers the manufactured staircase flight, adhesive & fixings, the carpenter and O&P · excl. structural trimming, strip-out, balustrade to landings, finishes, decoration & VAT

Exclusions

Lifting & material distribution — telehandler / forklift, hoist and site-distribution labour (an attendance, in main-contractor prelims)
Structural trimming of the floor opening, supporting steel/timber and the strip-out of an existing staircase
Balustrade / spindles to landings & galleries, separate wall handrails, floor & wall finishes, decoration (a painter’s rate) and access / scaffold
Scaffold supply (usually in preliminaries)
Preliminaries — main-contractor site set-up, management & welfare
VAT