Bathroom Tiling Costs: What You'll Actually Pay

Tiling is usually one of the single biggest line items in a bathroom renovation specifically — more so than in almost any other room, because a bathroom typically needs full waterproofing before a single tile goes on, and the wet-area detailing (shower enclosures, niches, falls to a drain) is genuinely more demanding work than tiling a kitchen splashback or a hallway floor.

What a bathroom tiling quote should cover

• Surface preparation — checking walls are flat and sound, levelling the floor
• Waterproofing ("tanking") in wet areas, especially the shower enclosure
• Tile supply, adhesive and grout
• Cutting around fittings, corners and pipework, with a sensible waste allowance
• Finishing — trims and silicone sealant at joints

Typical bathroom tiling costs

These are general, indicative ranges for supply-and-fit — actual cost depends on tile choice, layout and existing condition.

• Wall tiling: roughly £35–£70 per square metre for labour, plus tile cost
• Floor tiling: roughly £40–£80 per square metre for labour
• Full bathroom (walls and floor, including waterproofing): roughly £1,500–£4,500 total, supply and fit

Use our tile calculator to work out exactly how many tiles, how much adhesive and grout your specific room needs.

Why bathroom tanking is a different job to other tiling

In any wet area, proper waterproofing underneath the tiles is what actually keeps water out of the structure — tiles and grout alone are not fully waterproof. A shower enclosure specifically needs tanking taken up the full wall height inside the enclosure, with correctly formed falls in the floor tanking so water drains toward the waste rather than pooling. This is genuinely more involved than tanking a simple splashback, and it's the single area you should never let anyone cut corners on — the cost of fixing hidden water damage behind tiling later is far higher than doing it correctly the first time.

Grout and sealant choice for wet areas

Standard cementitious grout can absorb moisture over time in a constantly wet zone like a shower floor — an epoxy or specifically water-resistant grout is worth the modest extra cost there, even if standard grout is fine elsewhere in the room. Silicone sealant (not grout) belongs at every movement joint — where tiling meets the bath, shower tray or floor — since grout is rigid and will crack at these junctions as the building moves slightly with temperature and humidity.

Working around fittings

A bathroom has more to tile around than almost any other room: the bath or shower tray edge, the toilet cistern, pipework, a niche or recessed shelf if you've chosen one. Accurate cuts here need the right equipment — a proper wet tile saw gives a far cleaner result than a basic manual cutter, especially with porcelain or large-format tile. We hire out the same RUBI wet tile saw our own team uses.

Where bathroom tiling sits in the renovation sequence

Tiling has to happen after first-fix plumbing (so pipework positions are confirmed) and after waterproofing is fully cured, but before sanitaryware is finally fitted. Getting this order wrong — tiling before plumbing is confirmed, or before tanking has cured — is one of the more common causes of expensive rework in a bathroom project; see our common mistakes guide for more on sequencing.

The rest of the bathroom budget

Tiling is one piece of a bathroom renovation's cost — see our bathroom labour costs guide for the full picture, and our general UK tiling cost guide if you're comparing tiling cost across different rooms of the house, not just the bathroom.