Ask three joiners what a bespoke kitchen costs and you will get three very different answers, because "bespoke" covers everything from a hand-painted in-frame island to a straightforward run of made-to-measure units. The honest answer is that most fully bespoke fitted kitchens in the UK land somewhere between £12,000 and £35,000, and the spread is down to a handful of choices you control. Here is what actually moves the number, so you can work out roughly where your own project sits before anyone sets foot in your house.
For a typical three or four bedroom semi in Kingswinford, Wall Heath or Wordsley with around 8 to 12 units, here is roughly how the bands break down. These figures are for cabinetry, doors, worktop and fitting, and they exclude appliances, which most people buy separately.
Where you land depends far more on doors, worktop and complexity than on the number of units. A small galley with in-frame painted doors and quartz can easily cost more than a large kitchen in slab MDF with laminate.
Doors and drawer fronts are the single biggest lever. A sprayed MDF shaker front might be £90 to £160 per door; a hand-painted solid tulipwood in-frame equivalent can be £250 to £400, because in-frame construction takes considerably more shop time to build and hang accurately.
Worktops are the second. Laminate sits around £60 to £120 per linear metre, solid oak £200 to £350, quartz commonly £350 to £600 per square metre supplied and templated, and full slab granite or porcelain higher again. Cut-outs for undermount sinks and drainer grooves add cost.
Then there is hardware. Soft-close hinges and quality runners such as Blum or Hettich add perhaps £400 to £900 across a whole kitchen, and it is one of the few places we would tell you not to economise, because it is what you feel every single day.
Labour on a bespoke kitchen typically runs 5 to 12 working days on site for the joinery itself. Day rates for a skilled kitchen fitter in the West Midlands are commonly £200 to £300, and a bespoke fit is slower than a flatpack swap because units are scribed to walls that are rarely square, particularly in the older stock around Brierley Hill and Amblecote.
The costs people forget are almost always the trades around us. Budget separately for electrics (a new circuit and certificate for an induction hob can be £400 to £900), plumbing moves, plastering after the old kitchen comes out, tiling, flooring and skip hire. On a full strip-out, £2,000 to £4,000 of associated trades is normal, and it is better to know that at the start than halfway through.
A proper quote should be itemised: carcass material and thickness, door style and finish, worktop material and edge detail, named hardware brand, and the number of fitting days. If a quote is a single figure on one line, you have no way to compare it with anyone else's, and no way to know what has been assumed.
Ask what happens if the walls come out badly once the old kitchen is off, whether making good is included, and who is responsible for the worktop template and fit. Also ask for the lead time. Bespoke joinery is made to order, so 4 to 8 weeks between deposit and fitting is normal, and anyone promising next week is probably using stock carcasses.
It is worth it when your space is awkward, when you want a specific finish, or when standard 600mm modules would waste usable room. In a simple square kitchen with straight runs, a good quality off-the-shelf range fitted well can give you most of the result for less.
Often yes, and it can save a fair amount. Worktops rarely survive removal intact if they are stone, but freestanding appliances and sometimes integrated ones can be carried over as long as the new cabinet sizes are designed around them from the outset.
A deposit of 25 to 50 percent is standard for bespoke work because materials are ordered and machined specifically for you. The balance is usually staged, with a payment at delivery or the start of fitting and the remainder on completion.
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