Slate roofing guide
How much does a slate roof cost, and what moves the price?
Published figures put a slate roof well above a concrete tile one, and the sources disagree. Here they are with their origins, followed by the features of a roof that decide where yours lands.
The starting point for a slate roof price is that nobody can give you one without seeing the roof. Published figures exist, and they are worth knowing, but they come from different surveys, different house sizes and different dates. They set a range, and your roof lands somewhere inside it or outside it for reasons you can name.
We therefore begin with the figures that third parties have published, quoted with their sources and their hedges. We never put our own prices in a guide like this one. After that we move to the things that change the cost on a particular house: the size and shape of the roof, the slate itself, the condition of the timber underneath, and how the scaffold goes up.
Your written quote is one total price, given after a survey. That keeps it fair, because it is calculated from the roof in front of us, not from an average. The sections below should let you read any slate quote, ours or anyone else's, and see what it covers and what it leaves open.
01Slate
The published figures for a slate roof
Three published sources give a sense of scale. They measure different things, so they are shown side by side and not averaged.
| Source | Figure | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| MyJobQuote | Around £7,800 | Average, fitting a slate roof |
| HomeBuilding | Might reach £18,000 | Welsh slate, 65 m² roof, three-bedroom semi |
| HomeBuilding | £10,000 to £15,000 | Plain concrete tiles, same house |
| Which? Trusted Traders | £7,000 to £21,000 | Whole roof, any covering, average three-bedroom house |
Read them with their small print. MyJobQuote's page gives no VAT basis, and its figure is an average across the UK. HomeBuilding's slate figure comes from a standard three-bedroom semi with a 65 m² roof, and its estimates include labour, scaffolding and insulation. The Which? range comes from a November 2025 survey of 11 Trusted Traders and excludes VAT. MyJobQuote's average sits near the bottom of that range, while HomeBuilding's Welsh slate figure sits in its upper part. It adds that prices are likely to be at the upper end in London and the South East, which covers Kent and East Sussex.
Taken together, the figures show slate sitting at the top of the range for a new roof, with a wide spread. They say nothing firm about your roof, and a table of averages should not be read as a quote. The gap between the lowest and highest figures in the table shows how far a published average can sit from a real job.
02Price · Slate
What moves the price of a slate roof
Two roofs of the same area can cost very different amounts. These are the things that decide where yours sits.
Slate roof price questions
What makes slate quotes for one house differ so widely?
The quotes may be pricing different jobs. One reuses the old slates and another buys new ones, one renews the battens and another leaves them, one includes scaffold and lead and another does not. Ask each for the same list of items in writing, and the totals become comparable.
- Roof area and pitch. A bigger or steeper roof takes more slate and more time, and steeper work needs more access.
- Shape. Valleys, hips, dormers, chimneys and abutments each add cutting and lead work, so a plain gable costs less per slate than a roof with many junctions.
- The slate chosen. Welsh, Spanish, reclaimed and man-made slates can differ in price, and size and thickness change the number needed.
- How many old slates can be reused. A sound slate going back is a slate you do not buy.
- The timber beneath. Sound battens go back or stay, while rotten ones are renewed, and the rafters and the lining beneath are checked at the same time.
- Ridge, hip and verge details, and whether lead needs renewing.
- Access. Scaffolding, the highway licence it may need, and how close the roof is to a boundary.
- Waste. Old slates that cannot go back, old battens and lining all have to be removed and carried away.
Several of these are findings, not choices. We cannot know the state of the battens until the first slates come off, which is why we say plainly where a figure could change and what would cause it. If that happens, we pause the work, show you the timber, and re-price in writing before anything further is done.
For the choice between the slates themselves, our guide to Welsh or Spanish slate compares the two.
03Repairs · Rates
Repair rates and where they stop
Not every slate job is a whole roof. A repair is priced differently, and it is worth seeing the published figure to understand how little it says on its own.
Checkatrade lists natural slate repairs at £150 to £220 per m². Those rows are worked on a ceiling of 3 m² a job, VAT and access equipment are extra, and the table is dated June 2026. That is a rate for a small patch of slating, nothing like a roof price, and a per-m² figure is never multiplied into a total here. Doing so would overstate a small repair or understate a large one.
Why a repair rate does not scale up:
- Access has to be arranged and the surrounding slates checked before the first slate is touched
- A repair that uncovers soft battens becomes a different job
- Matching old slates is a time cost of its own
- A small area does not carry the cost of a whole scaffold, a whole strip or a whole new lining
MyJobQuote also gives an average of around £300 for a roof survey. It is a useful number to hold, because the survey is where a slate price starts: it tells us if you are in repair territory or re-slate territory, and that changes the size of the job by a very large margin. A roof that is part-way through its life may be cheaper to repair now and re-slate later than to strip early, and the survey is where that trade-off is weighed. Our guide on re-slating or repair explains how that call is made.
04Slate · Lifespans
Slate type, lifespan and what you pay for
The slate is a large material choice, and its life is part of what you are buying. HomeBuilding's approximate figures run to 100+ years for Welsh slate, 75 to 100 years for Spanish natural slate, and 50 to 80 for reclaimed Welsh slate. They are published ranges and not promises, and the nails and battens beneath a slate will not necessarily last as long as it does.
A longer-lived slate is not automatically the better choice for every roof. What matters is how the slate suits the house, the pitch, the exposure and the budget, and whether you plan to stay long enough to use the years it offers. A roof you will keep for decades gains more from a long-lived slate than one you will sell in a few years.
- New natural slate gives the longest lifespans in the published ranges
- Reclaimed slate can match an old roof closely, though its published range is shorter
- Man-made slate is a separate product with its own price, and our guide to natural against man-made slate compares the two
When a roof is re-slated, the slates already on it are sorted and the sound ones go back. That cuts the material bill, because you are buying only the shortfall. How many will go back is only known at the strip, not before it, and we tell you the count once the slates have been sorted. Slate size matters here as well: a slate of a different size changes the spacing the battens need, so the supplier's data sheet is checked before any slate is ordered.
Will the price change once the old slates come off?
It can, if the timber beneath proves worse than the survey could show. We stop, show you what we found and give you a revised written price before carrying on. Nothing extra is done without your agreement, and the original written total stays in place for the work you have approved.
05Scaffold
Scaffold, licences and the rest of the job
Scaffolding comes with every slate re-roof, and the price you are given has it built in. The hire itself is priced for your roof after the survey. What can be quoted here is the council fee when the structure stands over a pavement or the road.
Other costs that sit around the slating:
- Lead flashings and soakers, where they are renewed
- Ridge and hip fixings, which differ between systems
- Replacement battens and new lining where the old ones are spent
- Waste removal from a strip
From Kent County Council the permit for scaffolding placed on the highway is £52 per week for 2026 to 2027, covering 7 calendar days, and the council's page says the scaffolding company should submit the application; on our jobs, we arrange the licence with our scaffolder. East Sussex Highways, which covers Rye and Camber, lists a scaffolding licence at £127 for 28 days on its fee table, and checking the current figure before you rely on it is sensible. The periods differ, so the two numbers cannot be compared directly.
All of these sit inside the one written total, so ask any roofer who quotes you to confirm that VAT and scaffold are both counted. Without that answer, two totals that look alike may be pricing different jobs.
A scaffold on a re-slate is more than an access aid. It carries the edge protection the work needs, and it gives somewhere to stage the stripped slates and the new materials, so they are not piled on the roof while the slope is open.
06Slate · Quotes
How to read a slate quote
A slate quote is easier to judge once you know what to look for. These are the checks we would make on any quote, ours included.
A quote that leaves several of these open is not necessarily dear, but it is not yet comparable. If a second roofer is pricing the same job, hand over the survey account and photographs too, so both are pricing the same roof and the same work. Ask for the missing answers in writing before you set the totals against each other. When a quote prices a repair, it should also name the slope and the area the figure covers, so you can see what the money is for.
Your rights matter here too. Signing at your own door after we have surveyed the roof starts a 14-day cancellation period, and work can begin before the end of it only on your written request. Where you asked for an urgent repair visit because of a leak, there is no cancellation right, which is how the law treats that situation.
Where a roof turns out to need more than the survey could show, you hear it from us before the work goes ahead. Our slate roofing page covers the full service.
- Does it give one total price, and does it say whether VAT is in it?
- Does it say that scaffold is included, and who arranges any licence?
- Does it say whether the existing slates are being reused, and what happens if too many are broken?
- Does it describe the battens and lining: renewed, or kept where sound?
- Does it cover ridge, hips, verges and lead, or leave them out?
- Does it say what happens if hidden timber turns out to be rotten?
Is scaffold on the quote for a slate re-roof?
Yes. Scaffold is built into the written price, including the highway licence where the structure stands on a pavement or road. In Kent the fee for that licence is £52 per week for 2026 to 2027, and we arrange it with our scaffolder rather than leaving it to you.
Tell us what's wrong with the roof.
You'll get one written total price.