How to price boiler installs, services and heating work in 2026
What heating engineers typically charge, what moves the price on a boiler job, and how to price your own work so it pays.
By Build A Quote ·
What heating engineers typically charge in 2026
These are the ranges published by UK cost guides in 2026. They are what homeowners are told to expect, which makes them worth knowing: it is the number your customer has probably already seen.
| Job | Typical price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Combi boiler, like for like | £1,800 to £3,000 | £2,000 to £3,600 in London and the South East |
| System boiler | £2,100 to £5,000 | More where a new cylinder is needed |
| Regular (conventional) boiler | £2,000 to £4,600 | |
| Tank system converted to a combi | £2,500 to £4,000 | Usually two or three days |
| Moving the boiler | £300 to £1,000 extra | On top of the boiler price |
| Gas boiler service | £70 to £110 | £90 to £140 in London and the South East |
| Oil boiler service | £80 to £130 | |
| Service plus landlord gas safety certificate | £90 to £150 | Some price the certificate by the number of appliances |
| Power flush | £400 to £870 | Rises with the number of radiators, from 6 to 20 |
| Replacing a double-panel radiator | £160 to £320 | Labour on a like-for-like swap: £150 to £300 |
Where the guides differ, a range runs from the lowest figure to the highest. Installs are supplied and fitted.
Day rates reported for 2026: £250 to £400 for a Gas Safe engineer (BookaBuilderUK), and £200 to £700 for plumbers, an average of £368 with hourly rates averaging £58, in one training provider's survey (Logic4training). The sources and dates are at the end of this guide.
Start from your own costs, not the market
Market ranges tell you where customers' expectations sit. They don't tell you whether a job pays. That comes from your own numbers:
- What a year costs you to trade: van, fuel, insurance, Gas Safe registration, tools and test equipment, training, phone, software and accountancy.
- The wage you want to take.
- The days you can actually bill. Not 52 weeks of five days. Take off holidays, bank holidays, sickness, bad weather, and the hours that go on surveys, quoting, buying parts and travelling.
Add the yearly costs and the wage together, then divide by the billable days. That is the day rate you need. It can come out higher than expected, because the unbilled days are easy to underestimate.
From there, a boiler install is roughly: the boiler, plus parts and materials, plus your days on site at that rate, plus a margin on materials if you add one. Some engineers keep a short list of standard prices (like-for-like combi swap, conversion, move) and adjust from there.
What moves the price on a boiler job
Two jobs described as "a new boiler" can be days apart in work. These are the questions worth asking every time, because each one changes the price:
- Combi or system. How many showers or baths run at the same time, and how many bathrooms? Two at once, or three bathrooms, usually points to a system boiler and a cylinder.
- Size. Bedrooms and bathrooms give a fair starting point for the output needed.
- Staying put or moving. A move means new pipework, a new flue route and often a new condensate run.
- The flue. Straight out of a wall is one price. A vertical flue through a loft, or a long run, is another.
- The gas supply. An undersized gas pipe is a common hidden cost. BookaBuilderUK puts an upgrade at £200 to £500, more for long runs.
- Protecting the new boiler. A magnetic filter (£100 to £200 in the same guide) and a chemical clean or power flush, priced in rather than assumed.
- Controls and valves. A new thermostat or smart controls, and thermostatic radiator valves where the radiators don't already have them.
- Oil. For oil customers: the age and type of tank, what it stands on, and the supply line.
- Access and parking. Loft access, stairs, and where the van can go (in London, parking and emissions charges add up).
- Old equipment. Taking away the old boiler, tank or cylinder.
A job quoted from a phone call that turns out to need two or three of these is where the margin goes.
Services and landlord certificates
Services are simpler to price, and easy to price too low. Keep a base price per fuel (gas and oil differ), then add for each extra appliance. For landlords, the gas safety record (often called a CP12) is usually priced on top, per appliance, and some engineers sell a service and certificate together.
Fixed prices, "from" prices and surveys
There is no single right way to quote heating work. The common choices are:
- A fixed price after a survey. The most accurate, and the most time per quote.
- A "from" price for standard jobs ("combi swaps from £…"). Quick, but customers fix on the lowest number.
- A guide price from the customer's answers, confirmed by a survey. Quick for the customer, accurate enough to qualify the job, and you still check before work starts.
Whichever you use, say clearly what is included and what would change the price.
Getting quotes out faster
Pricing well and pricing quickly are different problems. Engineers tend to use one of these:
- A spreadsheet or price book with standard jobs and extras. Cheap and flexible, but it lives on your laptop and you still do the visit or the call.
- Quoting software that builds a written quote from your price list after you have seen the job.
- A price calculator on your website that asks the customer the questions above and shows them a guide price on your rates before they get in touch.
The third is what Build A Quote does. The homeowner answers questions about the boiler, the size of the home, the flue, access and, for oil, the tank. They see a guide price for their own job, and you receive the enquiry with all their answers. Prices are worked out on our server, so your price list isn't sent to the customer's browser. There are separate tools for boiler installs, services, power flushes, radiators, cylinders, full heating systems and underfloor heating.
Where the figures come from
Prices are what trades and cost guides report typically being charged, including VAT where the source says so. They vary by region, by job and by business. Use them as a sense-check, not as a price list.
- Boiler replacement cost guide, Fantastic Services, updated 30 September 2026
- Boiler replacement cost 2026, BookaBuilderUK, 2026
- Boiler service cost guide, Fantastic Services, updated 30 September 2026
- Power flush cost, MyJobQuote, updated 30 September 2026
- Radiator replacement cost guide, Fantastic Services, updated 30 September 2026
- How much do plumbers charge per hour?, Logic4training, updated 15 June 2026
Try a heating quote tool.
This is the real Build A Quote boiler tool on example rates. Step through it as a homeowner would. Each heating job has its own tool, asking its own questions.