How to Plan a Kitchen Refurbishment in London: Budgets, Timescales and Prep

A kitchen refurbishment is the biggest single job most London homeowners take on, and almost all of the expensive mistakes happen before anyone picks up a tool. Units ordered before the walls were measured. A recirculating cooker hood that doesn't meet the regulations. A new circuit nobody certified, which turns up years later when you come to sell.

This guide walks through the planning in the order it actually happens: deciding the scope, setting a realistic budget, the rules that apply in England, how long it takes, and how to get your home ready. Where we quote a figure or a rule, we link to where it comes from.

Refresh, refit or new layout? Decide the scope first

Before you look at a single brochure, decide which of these three jobs you are actually doing, because each one costs and takes very different amounts of time.

• A refresh. The cabinets stay. New doors or painted ones, new handles, a new worktop, new lighting and decoration. If the carcasses are sound, this can transform a kitchen for a fraction of the cost of replacing it.
• A like-for-like refit. Out with the old units, in with new ones, with the sink, hob and oven staying where they are. The plumbing, gas and electrics mostly stay put, which keeps the cost and the disruption down.
• A new layout. Moving the sink, the hob or the oven, adding an island, or taking down a wall. This is where the cost climbs, because pipes, waste, gas and circuits all have to move with them, and walls need making good afterwards.

Most budget overruns start as a refit that quietly turns into a new layout halfway through. Decide which job it is at the start, and stick to it.

Setting a realistic budget in London

There is no single price for a kitchen, but published cost guides give a useful sense of scale. As of 2026:

• Rated People puts typical spending at £5,000 to £12,000, with budget kitchens from around £3,000 and luxury installations upwards of £28,000. It notes that labour in London and the South East can be up to 20% higher than average. (Rated People)
• Homebuilding & Renovating puts a mid-range kitchen at £10,000 to £20,000, and a flat-pack kitchen at £3,300 to £4,700 for a small room. (Homebuilding & Renovating)
• Which? estimates that labour is roughly 20 to 30% of the total spend. (Which?)

The biggest things that move the figure are the size of the room, the quality of the units and worktop, whether the layout changes, and how much making good the walls and floor need once the old kitchen is out. Keep some money back for the things nobody can see until the units come off the wall: a damp patch, a rotten section of floor, or old wiring that needs an electrician.

Every kitchen we do is quoted individually after a survey, so treat the ranges above as a sense check, not a quote.

Permissions and the rules that apply

Most kitchen refurbishments in England need no planning permission at all. Here is what can apply, depending on your home.

• Planning permission. Internal alterations are not classed as development, so a new kitchen inside a house does not normally need planning permission. (GOV.UK)
• Listed buildings. If your home is listed, works that affect its character need listed building consent, and doing them without it is an offence. Check with your council before you plan anything. (legislation.gov.uk)
• Leasehold flats. Many leases say you need the freeholder's consent for alterations, and some specifically cover changes to plumbing, gas and electrics. Where a lease requires consent for improvements, it cannot be unreasonably withheld, but you still need to ask, in writing, before work starts. Unauthorised alterations can cause problems when you come to sell. (Landlord and Tenant Act 1927; Royal Greenwich)
• Electrics. A new or replacement consumer unit, or a complete new circuit, is notifiable building work. It must be done by an electrician registered with a competent person scheme, or notified to building control. Extra sockets or lights added to an existing circuit are not notifiable, but must still be done to the wiring regulations. If you use a registered electrician, you should receive a compliance certificate; chase it if it hasn't arrived within 30 days. (Planning Portal; GOV.UK leaflet)
• Gas. Connecting, disconnecting or moving a gas hob, cooker or gas pipe is gas work, and by law it must be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer. It is illegal for someone who isn't registered to fit it and then have a registered engineer "check" it. (Gas Safe Register)

Keep every certificate. When you sell, your buyer's solicitor will ask for them.

Ventilation: the cooker hood question

This is the rule people most often get wrong. Under Part F of the Building Regulations, a kitchen needs extract ventilation: 30 litres a second from a cooker hood that extracts to the outside, or 60 litres a second from an extract fan elsewhere in the room if there is no such hood. A recirculating cooker hood on its own, which filters the air and blows it back into the room, does not meet the requirement. (Approved Document F)

When a kitchen is refurbished, any existing extract fan or ducted cooker hood should be kept or replaced, not taken out. Replacing a hood on its existing cabling does not need notifying. In practice this means deciding early where the duct will run, because it affects where the hob can go and which wall units you can have.

How long a kitchen refurbishment takes

Published guides put the fitting itself at somewhere between 5 and 10 working days and around two weeks, depending on the size of the kitchen and how much is changing. (Rated People; MyJobQuote) That is the time on site. Before it come the design, the survey and waiting for units to be delivered, which can take longer than the fit.

On site, the work usually runs in this order:

1. Strip out the old kitchen and protect the rest of the house.
2. First fix: plumbing, waste, any gas and electrics roughed in where the new layout needs them.
3. Make good: plastering and any floor repairs, then let the plaster dry.
4. Fit the base and wall units, level and square.
5. Worktops: laminate and wood are usually fitted straight away; quartz and stone are templated once the units are fixed, level and square, and fitted after they have been made.
6. Splashback or tiling, then second fix: taps, sink, appliances, sockets and lights.
7. Decorate, clean and hand over.

The worktop is the step that catches people out. A stone or quartz top cannot be measured until the units are in, so plan for a gap between the units going in and the worktop arriving. (Howdens) Ask your supplier how long their lead time is before you book anything else around it.

Getting your home ready

A little preparation makes the weeks without a kitchen much easier, and it saves time on site.

• Set up a temporary kitchen in another room: kettle, microwave, toaster and the fridge if it can be moved.
• Empty every cupboard and drawer before the start date, and clear the worktops.
• Make space for deliveries. A kitchen arrives in a lot of boxes; a garage, spare room or hallway corner needs to be clear for them.
• Get leasehold consent in writing before work starts, if your lease requires it.
• Think about parking and waste. In many parts of London parking is by permit. If you need a skip on the road, it is usually the skip company that applies for the permit, not you; in Hillingdon, for example, that is the council's rule. (Hillingdon Council)
• Tell the neighbours, especially in a flat. A friendly note about dates and noisy days goes a long way.

Common mistakes we see

• Ordering units before the room is measured properly, or before the walls have been plastered, so nothing quite fits.
• Too few sockets. Count your appliances, then add some. Adding sockets later means cutting into a finished splashback.
• Choosing a recirculating hood where the room needs a ducted one to meet the regulations.
• No money set aside for making good the walls and floor once the old kitchen is out.
• Changing the layout halfway through, which moves pipes and circuits that were already fitted.
• Losing the certificates for gas and electrical work, which you will need when you sell.

Your planning checklist

Kitchen refurbishment with Handy 4 London

If you have read this far, you already know more about planning a kitchen than most people do when they first call a builder. The next step is a survey and a price you can rely on.

We carry out kitchen refurbishment in London across Harrow, Uxbridge and North West, West & Central London. One team handles the whole job, from stripping out the old kitchen to the final clean: units, worktops, plumbing, electrics, tiling and lighting. You get a fixed written quote after a proper survey, a timeline before we start, and a 12-month workmanship guarantee when we finish. Already bought your kitchen from a retailer? We can fit that too. And if your kitchen only needs a refresh rather than a replacement, our handyman team can re-hang doors, repair worktops and repaint for a fraction of the cost. We will tell you honestly which one you need.