How Long Does a Kitchen Renovation Take in London?

The realistic timeline, week by week

For a straightforward kitchen swap in the same footprint, plan for around two to three weeks on site. Move the sink, change the layout, or knock through into a dining room and you are looking at four to six weeks. Add a rear extension and the kitchen fit is simply the last month of a much longer programme.

These are working weeks, not calendar weeks. Bank holidays, a plasterer who is finishing another job, and the two or three days that plaster needs to dry properly all stretch the calendar.

• Days 1 to 3: strip out, remove old units, lift flooring, skip on site or a waste collection booked
• Days 3 to 7: first fix plumbing and electrics, moving pipework and adding sockets, plus any stud walls
• Week 2: plastering, then drying time, roughly 2 to 5 days depending on how much wall area and how well the room ventilates
• Week 2 to 3: flooring down, units installed and levelled
• Week 3 to 4: worktop template, then fabrication and fitting
• Final days: second fix electrics, appliances connected, splashback, tiling, silicone, snagging

The bit almost everyone underestimates: worktops

If you are having stone, quartz or a solid surface worktop, it cannot be measured until the units are physically installed and level. The templater then takes the job away and the worktop is cut off site. That gap is usually 7 to 14 working days, and in that period you have units with no tops, no sink and no hob.

Laminate worktops can be cut on site the same day, which is why a budget kitchen often finishes a fortnight sooner than a premium one. If you want stone and a short timeline, book the templater provisionally the moment the units are ordered.

London-specific things that add weeks

Planning your start date around the paperwork matters more here than almost anywhere else. In a flat, most leases require written consent from the freeholder or managing agent before you start, particularly for anything touching plumbing or hard flooring. That correspondence can easily take four to six weeks, so send it early.

Access is the other London tax. In a terrace in Hackney or a Victorian conversion in Wandsworth, everything comes in and out through the front door and up a staircase. Councils across Greater London require a permit for a skip on the public highway, typically a few days to arrange, and some boroughs restrict skips on red routes altogether, meaning waste has to be bagged and carried.

• Freeholder or managing agent consent for leasehold flats, often 4 to 6 weeks
• Building control notification where you are altering electrics or removing a structural wall
• Party wall notices if you are taking down a wall shared with a neighbour, two months' notice for structural work
• Skip permits and controlled parking zone suspensions from the borough
• Working hours restrictions in most blocks, commonly 8am to 6pm weekdays and no Sunday work

What quietly adds a week mid-job

Older London housing stock hides surprises. Lift the floor in a 1900s terrace and you may find rotten joists, a redundant chimney breast, or an under-sink waste that runs the wrong way. Electrics are the most common one: if the consumer unit will not take the extra circuits a modern kitchen needs, that is a day or two of extra work and a new certificate.

Client-side changes are the other big one. Deciding to move the hob after first fix means the electrician comes back, and the tiler gets pushed a week. Lock the layout and every appliance model before the strip out begins, because appliance dimensions drive the cabinetry.

How to keep it to the shortest honest timeline

Order the kitchen before the start date, not after. Standard ranges from the big suppliers usually arrive in 2 to 4 weeks, bespoke joinery in 8 to 12 weeks, and appliances have been the single least predictable item in recent years.

Have everything on site before the strip out: tiles, taps, handles, flooring, sink, lighting. A job stops dead waiting for a single item, and a stopped job loses its place in the trades' diaries. It is also worth setting up a temporary kitchen somewhere else in the house, a kettle, microwave and a fridge, because you will be without a working one for most of the programme.