Published guides put large-format and porcelain labour at £45–£70 per m² (trade2base, June 2026), against £30–£45 for standard ceramic. Checkatrade gives about £50 per m², at the higher end for large format, and £250–£350 a day.
Build in the extras: a flatter substrate, more adhesive, levelling clips, and often a second pair of hands.
Large-format porcelain (600 × 600 mm and bigger, including 600 × 1200 mm and slabs) looks simple: fewer tiles, fewer joints. In practice each tile is heavy, shows every bump in the substrate, and is expensive to break. That's why published labour rates for it are higher.
Published labour rates
| Item | Typical UK price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Standard ceramic labour | £30–£45 per m² | trade2base, June 2026 |
| Large-format / porcelain labour | £45–£70 per m² | trade2base, June 2026 |
| Large-format labour | about £50 per m² (higher end) | Checkatrade, 2026 |
| Porcelain floor labour | £30–£60 per m² | Checkatrade, 2026 |
| Day rate | £250–£350 | Checkatrade, 2026 |
| Large-format or designer tile on a wet room floor, supply and lay | £100–£120 per m² | trade2base, June 2026 |
For wet room floors in 600 × 600 mm or larger, trade2base suggests adding 20–30% to your labour rate. Getting the fall right while keeping big tiles flat takes extra time.
What takes the extra time
- Flatness: big tiles show lippage straight away, so the floor or wall often needs levelling first. See floor preparation prices.
- Full coverage: back-buttering and a solid bed take longer per tile.
- Handling: large tiles and slabs often need two people and suction lifters, especially on walls.
- Cutting: long, accurate cuts need a rail saw or a large cutter, and a mistake wastes an expensive tile.
- Levelling clips on every joint.
Materials to allow for
- Adhesive: Mapei's large-format adhesive uses about 1.2 kg per m² for every mm of bed, so a 4–5 mm bed is about 5–6 kg per m². That's roughly twice a standard wall tile. Use the material calculator.
- Wastage: allow the top of the range or more. One broken tile is a big share of the area. See tile wastage.
- Levelling clips and wedges, primer, and levelling compound as needed.
Worked example
A 15 m² open-plan floor in 600 × 1200 mm porcelain on a reasonably flat slab:
| Line | Working | Using the published ranges |
|---|---|---|
| Labour | 15 m² × £45–£70 | £675–£1,050 |
| Adhesive | 15 m² × about 5 kg = 75 kg, so 4 × 20 kg bags | at your merchant's price |
| Levelling where needed | priced separately | £6–£30 per m² |
Check it against your day rate. At around 8 m² a day that's two days, so £675 works out at about £338 a day before any prep. See the labour cost calculator.
Sources
- trade2base: Wall tiling costs UK · June 2026; labour per m² by tile type
- Checkatrade: Large format tile installation cost · 2026; labour per m², day rates, output
- Checkatrade: Porcelain tile flooring installation costs · 2026; porcelain labour, materials and room totals
- trade2base: Wet room costs UK · June 2026; large format on wet room floors
- Mapei Large Format Tile Adhesive technical data sheet · 1.2 kg/m² per mm of bed
Prices change. Figures were checked on 20 October 2026; always check current costs and your own figures before quoting.