The price of home improvements skyrocketed by 17% in January, according to the latest data from Checkatrade.
Checkatrade examined over 500,000 real customer reviews to identify the average prices paid by UK home improvers, finding the average person was paying an extra £379 for home improvements last month, versus prices paid in 2021.
Categories worst affected include building work, up 38.6%, tiling, up 29.8% and bricklaying, up 21.8%. Inflation, material price increases and intense customer demand were all thought to be behind the price rises.
Average plumbing costs rose by 19.43% to £434.07, while bathroom costs reached £2,457.98, rising by 18.38%.
Nevertheless, Checkatrade saw its busiest ever January, with 4.1 million searches for its checked and vetted tradespeople.
Mike Fairman, CEO at Checkatrade, said: “We always recommend that homeowners who are planning improvements make a contingency budget in case of unexpected costs, and this has become particular important while we continue to see such uncertainty in the market. Inflation is really biting the price of home improvement and is big a contributing factor to the price increases we’re seeing, as the cost of raw materials continues to soar. This doesn’t seem to be putting off homeowners however, and some price increases we’ve seen could be further exacerbated by homeowners tackling larger projects around their homes.”