What's the cost of wallpapering in 2025?

If you've read my previous blog on What's a painter's day rate in Sussex? you'd know at the end I mentioned that although decorators do wallpapering, I wanted to cover this topic in a separate blog. There is a reason for that! And that is the trends over the last couple of decades. So let's go through the history of wallpaper before we get to the modern day price for hanging.

According to sources, wallpaper originated in ancient China over 2000 years ago. Then in the 16th/17th century it had already made it's way to Europe. England and France became major producers. 18th century with the start of the industrial revolution saw the invention of machines capable of faster printing. By 19th century wallpaper had already become accessible commodity for the middle class. And because most of us have lived through the 20th century I think it is worth mentioning the things people did with paper in that time. To a big extent wallpaper was used to cover imperfections on walls and ceilings in the 1900's, I am mostly talking about lining paper, woodchip paper, and other papers that were intended to be painted once hung. It's very rare to use those nowadays, instead when we do choose to go for a wallpaper finish it's mainly to create a specific design. I mean they did that back in the day too, we're just plastering walls better now!

With the history lesson out of the way, let's actually get to the point, prices! It takes about half a day to wallpaper a wall. So if we say we have four walls to do that'd be approximately two days of labour (depending on the room size) for which you should expect to pay in the region of £550-£650. A feature wall will most likely be the kind of job you'd ask a decorator to price, and even though it would generally take half a day most decorators will charge a full day rate. The reason for that is because unlike plumbers or electricians, decorators rarely can have two jobs in one day, it is logistically very difficult. For that reason you can expect to be charged between £250-£350 for hanging a wallpaper on a feature wall. Now let's talk what these prices should include. Labour plus materials, but with the exception of the actual wallpaper, that is usually chosen and bought by the customer. It's also important to mention that these prices are for reasonably priced wallpaper. What does that mean you may wonder? Up to and including £50 per roll, anything over that is generally considered designer, and there's a different way of pricing those jobs.

Designer wallpaper. As mentioned above when working with wallpaper that costs in excess of £50 per roll there is a different formula of pricing those jobs, and that is to multiply the cost of the wallpaper by one and a half or two (depending on the decorator). This is to cover the potential liability! Let's say I am charging you £300 to hang wallpaper on one wall, but the paper itself cost £600/£700 alone, if I god forbid mess it up, my labour charge wouldn't even be enough to cover the materials. We are professionals but that doesn't mean we never make mistakes, it happens and when it does we pay for it! That's why charging less than the materials you work with is not a sustainable business practice. As such we must ensure that our labour charge is enough to cover the replacement of materials should something go wrong, so we can still finish the job and make sure we're not leaving an unhappy customer behind! So what would that look in figures? If you have bought a wallpaper that costs £600 you can expect to pay between £900 and £1200 for labour.