Calculator
Kitchen fitter day rate: what you pay, and what you have to charge
The record
- Benchmark wage
- £16.40 an hour
- Charged out at
- £26.57 an hour, £212.56 a day
- Agreement
- CIJC Working Rule Agreement, 20 July 2026
What the 35% is made of
What the wage does not show, and none of it is optional.
- Employer's National Insurance15% above £5,000 a year
- Holiday pay12.07%
- Pension, auto-enrolment minimum3%
- CITB levy0.35% of payroll
- Sick pay, training and employer's liability insurancethe remainder
At 0% you are pricing a CIS subcontractor's labour - National Insurance, holiday and pension are then theirs to carry, not the job's.
Working for yourself is a different sum and the tool knows it: 25% rather than 35%. Lower than an employer's 35% because there is no employer's National Insurance on your own labour - that 15% is the whole of the difference.
Where the wage comes from
Kitchen fitters are graded under the CIJC Working Rule Agreement at the craft rate rate of £16.40 an hour, effective 20 July 2026. The same promulgation the cost-per-m2 cards price from - en-GB-rates.json holds it too, and the two must move together each July.
That is an agreement rate - the negotiated floor for a graded operative, not what the market pays. The market pays more, and how much more is the thing nobody publishes. It is what the figures contributed through this page are measuring.
What does a kitchen fitter charge a day?
A kitchen fitter working as a carpenter is graded at the construction craft rate of £16.40 an hour, which charges out at around £212 a day with employment on-costs and margin on top. Most kitchens are sold as a job rather than by the day, so that figure is how you check a fixed price, not how you quote one.
The number that decides the job is days on site, and it is the one most often underestimated. A straightforward replacement into an existing layout is a different job from a kitchen where the walls move, and the difference is usually several days rather than several hours.
Why a kitchen price is really four trades in a trench coat
Because fitting a kitchen means joinery, plumbing, electrics, tiling and usually a bit of plastering, and one person is rarely entitled to do all of it. Gas work requires a registered engineer. Notifiable electrical work requires a competent person or building control. Those are not optional and they are not the fitter’s hourly rate.
So a kitchen quote built from one day rate is either wrong or is quietly assuming free subcontractors. Price the fitter’s days at the fitter’s rate and put the electrician, the plumber and the gas work in as their own lines at theirs - which is what the other pages on this hub are for.
What gets missed on a kitchen
- Taking the old one out. Strip out, capping off services and getting the units to a skip is most of a day before anything new arrives.
- Making good. Old kitchens hide bad walls, bad floors and dead sockets. What is behind the units is nobody’s scope until it is yours.
- Worktop templating. Stone and composite tops are templated after the units are in and fitted on a return visit, which is a second appearance on site and a gap in the middle of the job.
- Waiting for deliveries. A missing door or a damaged carcass stops the job, and a day standing about is a day paid for.
Questions people ask
How much should a kitchen fitter charge per day?
Around £212 a day charged out for an employed fitter, built from £16.40 an hour in wages plus employment on-costs of about 35% and a margin of about 20%. Self-employed fitters carrying their own holiday, tools and insurance work from a different starting point and typically charge more.
Should a kitchen be quoted per day or as a fixed price?
As a fixed price in almost every case, because that is what customers expect and it rewards you for working efficiently. Build it from days at your worked-out rate, then add the specialist trades as their own lines and the strip-out and making good as their own days rather than as an afterthought.
Can a kitchen fitter do the electrics and gas?
Not unless they hold the relevant competence. Gas work requires a registered engineer, and notifiable electrical work requires a competent person or building control notification. Those parts of a kitchen have to be priced at a registered trade's rate, which is higher than a fitter's, and quoting them at the fitter's rate is how a kitchen loses money.
Pricing a job like these?
HubTrack is where small construction firms keep their compliance documents, their jobs and their evidence trail in one place - method statements and risk assessments prepared for you to check and sign off, and a record of who signed what and when. The same engine that reads the contract documents behind this page reads yours inside HubTrack.