Use this to see what three UK cost guides say about ridge tile work, why their figures cannot be added or multiplied, and what to check before you accept a written price for your own ridge.
The ridge tiles are the cap along the top of a pitched roof, and when one cracks, shifts or falls, owners reach for a number: what will this cost? The answer starts with what is being asked. One loose tile on a low roof, ten metres of failing ridge on a tall one and a full re-bed are three different jobs with three different prices.
Three UK guides publish figures that bear on the question. Which? Trusted Traders puts a single new ridge tile at £80 to £300, ex VAT (Nov 2025). MyJobQuote gives a range of £225 to £550 for ridge work (Oct 2026). Checkatrade lists ridge tile repairs at £50 to £70 per metre (June 2026). All three come from outside firms and describe national averages. None is a Castle price, and each answers a slightly different question.
The sections below place the figures side by side, explain why they differ, and set out how access, scaffold and VAT sit on top. When a ridge needs more than a repair, our guide to re-bedding ridge tiles in mortar explains the larger job, and the wider dry ridge and verge page covers the whole subject.
Three guides, three ranges
The table sets two published figures next to each other, with what each one prices, and a third follows in the text. They are published national averages, and none is a price from Castle.
| Source | What it prices | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Which? Trusted Traders, Nov 2025 | Put in a new ridge tile | £80 to £300, ex VAT |
| MyJobQuote, Oct 2026 | Ridge tile work | £225 to £550 |
The first thing to notice is that the three do not line up. Which? prices one tile and says its figures exclude VAT. MyJobQuote gives a total for a ridge job and does not state the VAT basis, so we do not add one. The third source prices by the metre: Checkatrade, in June 2026, lists ridge tile repairs at £50 to £70 per metre, and says its costs are exclusive of VAT, which must be added.
The second thing is what is missing. None of the three says how long the ridge is, how high it stands, or what the tiles are made of. Those are the details a roofer collects at a survey, and they are why a published range works as a sense check on a quote and not as a way of working out a price.
Which? adds that its prices are likely to climb for households around London and the wider South East, Kent included.
Why the ranges do not match
When three sources disagree, a likely cause is that they describe different jobs. For ridge work the differences fall into four groups.
- Scope: one replacement tile, a section of ridge, or the whole length from gable to gable.
- Method: lifting and re-laying existing tiles on a new mortar bed, or fitting a mechanical dry-fix system.
- Access: a tower, a single scaffold lift or a full scaffold, which depends on the height of the roof.
- Condition: whether the tiles are sound and the bed is the only fault, or the timber and the covering beneath have been damaged.
A guide that prices a new ridge tile is pricing the smallest of these. A guide that prices ridge work as a whole is averaging across the others. A per-metre rate sits between them.
The same difference appears when two roofers visit one house, and it can explain a gap that looks like overcharging but is not. One may be pricing a small repair to the cracked tiles, the other a full re-bed with fixings, and both can be right for different reasons. When the written totals differ widely, ask each roofer to say in a sentence what the job is, and how many metres of ridge it covers.
It also helps to know the standard the work is measured against. Marley, the tile maker, says working to BS 5534 is not a legal duty, yet the 2015 amendments left mortar unable to serve as the only fixing, so a good repair adds a mechanical one.
The per-metre rate, used carefully
A rate per metre looks like something you could multiply, but it is not a total for your ridge.
Checkatrade's repair table lists ridge tile repairs at £50 to £70 per metre and says its costs are exclusive of VAT, so VAT of 20 per cent is added on top. The table is a guide to the cost of repairing a stretch of ridge. It does not say the whole job on a longer ridge will be a straight multiple of that rate, and the other rows of the same table apply their per-square-metre rates only up to 3 square metres.
There are good reasons not to multiply:
- Fixed costs such as access do not grow with each metre, so a short job costs more per metre than a long one.
- A longer ridge can bring a hip, an end tile or a change of pitch into the work.
- A rate for repairing a ridge does not stand in for re-bedding or replacing it.
- The condition of the bed underneath changes the work from one metre to the next.
So the figure is best used as a check on the scale of a repair. If a quote for one metre of ridge repair came back at several hundred pounds, you would reasonably ask what it covers. If it came back inside the published range, nothing about it looks odd.
You receive one written total, never a rate to apply to your own ridge, because the length and the access are things only a survey can fix.
Access, scaffold and VAT
On top of the repair, three things move a ridge price, and the guides above do not fold them in the same way.
Access comes first. Ridge work is done from a tower or a scaffold lift on a house of any height, because a ridge sits above every other part of the roof. The cost of scaffold or a tower is priced after a survey, since it depends on the height, the ground and the street. If the scaffolding has to stand over a public road or pavement, the scaffolder applies to Kent County Council for the licence, which falls under section 169 of the Highways Act 1980. The fee is £52 per week for 2026 to 2027, with 5 working days' notice. Our guide to scaffold for ridge repairs explains when a tower will do.
VAT comes second. The standard rate is 20 per cent. Which? and the per-metre guide give figures that exclude VAT, MyJobQuote does not say, and a homeowner's bill is the one that includes it. The domestic reverse charge for building work does not reach a homeowner.
When you compare quotes, look for a line stating if VAT and scaffold are included.
Third comes waste: old mortar, broken tiles and packaging all have to be taken away, and the quote should say it is. A skip set down in the road takes a separate Kent County Council permit, at £45 per week for 2026 to 2027 and no larger than 5 metres by 2 metres, so a small ridge job can be cleared by taking the waste away in the van instead.
When a few tiles are not enough
A repair of a few ridge tiles is the right answer when the rest of the ridge is sound. Sometimes it is not, and the cheaper job becomes the more expensive one if it has to be done twice.
Signs that more than a few tiles need attention:
- the mortar is cracked or missing along much of the length, not only at the failed tile
- tiles have been repaired before, and neighbours are now loosening
- the ridge has sagged or the line is no longer straight
- the failure came with a storm, and other roof tiles have moved too
In those cases a re-bed of the whole ridge, with mechanical fixing, usually gives a better result than patching. For an exposed gable or a roof that has already lost tiles, a dry-fixed ridge made to BS 8612:2018 is another route. Neither is automatically cheaper or dearer than patching in the short term, and the survey sets out which suits the roof.
If the damage followed a storm, tell your insurer first, keep photos and receipts, and read what your policy means by a storm before assuming the claim will succeed. The Financial Ombudsman lists gradual damage and ordinary wear among the common exclusions, so a ridge that has been failing for years may not be covered.
Our guide on cracked ridge mortar shows what the early signs look like.
What a ridge quote should say
The quote you receive is one total, given following the survey. That is the figure to compare between roofers, and the wording behind it matters as much as the sum. Citizens Advice recommends getting at least 3 written quotes.
Before you accept a price for ridge work, check that it states:
- the length of ridge it covers, and whether hips are included
- whether tiles are re-used or replaced, and how many
- whether the repair is re-bedding, pointing or a dry-fixed system
- that mechanical fixing is part of the job
- how access is arranged, and any licence Kent County Council must grant for scaffold
- that VAT is included and the waste is taken away
That list is what you can fairly compare between two roofers, and it works for a repair of any size. If one quote answers all six points and another answers two, the difference between their totals is partly a difference in what they promise. A bare figure, with no length and no method, tells you almost nothing.
If you can, send photos of the ridge from the road and from any window with a view of it. The survey of the roof comes first, photos of your own ridge reach you afterwards, and a written price follows. A listed home, or one in a conservation area, has its consent route settled before any price is firm.
