Front Door Cost 2026: UK Prices by Material, Fitted

Most pages that rank for front door cost are either retailers selling a door or cost guides that list a price per material and stop. The figures disagree because they measure different things: a door leaf, a door hung by a local trade, or a complete doorset made to measure and certified by an installer. This guide keeps those apart, names the source and date of every price rather than averaging them, and adds the parts nobody else covers: the fire door rules for flats, the Part L number for a door, and the two glazing lines that decide the paperwork. It sits with our other double glazing and door guides.

Front door prices by material, fitted

The uPVC and composite rows are the site's own benchmarks, set from Checkatrade (June 2026), MyJobQuote (July 2026) and Costwise (June 2026). The other rows are shown source by source, because the sources do not agree and an average of a joiner's price and an installer's price would describe neither.

Figures as published by each source, not averaged. KJM includes VAT; Checkatrade, MyJobQuote, GreenMatch and Brow do not say either way. The flat door row is supply plus a separately quoted doorset installation, not a single fitted price. The door cost calculator does not model timber or aluminium front doors. Research in lib/research/front-door-cost-2026.md.

For a price on your own mix of doors, the door cost calculatorworks through uPVC, composite, French, patio and bifold doors. If the choice is between the two cheapest materials, how they are built and where the sellers' claims run ahead of the evidence is covered in uPVC vs composite doors.

Why timber runs from about £550 to £5,000

No other material shows the split as sharply. Checkatrade prices a basic-spec or flush-ply wooden front door at £550 to £1,800 installed, and MyJobQuote gives oak £650 to £1,650, mahogany £550 to £1,550 and pine £300 to £1,150 supplied and fitted. Those are prices for a door hung by a local joiner or carpenter. MyJobQuote adds a caution on the cheapest row: pine is a softwood, so pine doors do not last as long as many of the hardwoods.

The installers price something else. KJM Group, a Hampshire installer, starts bespoke timber doors at £4,000 including VAT. Everest says its wooden doors average from £5,000 including full installation and a 10-year guarantee. Brow Windows & Doors, in South Cheshire, gives engineered timber £2,500 to £5,500 installed and hardwood or bespoke timber £3,500 to £6,500 or more, for a door about 900 mm wide with no side panels, and prices an engineered four-panel door for a conservation-area Victorian terrace at £4,200 to £5,800 fully fitted. What that money buys is a made-to-measure doorset: frame, survey and, in Everest's case, a guarantee. KJM also says modern engineered timber greatly reduces the risk of warping or swelling compared with the solid wood doors of the past.

Aluminium shows the same split on a smaller scale: £1,500 to £4,000 at MyJobQuote, against £2,500 to £4,000 for a standard door and £3,500 to £6,000 for a large-glazed or slim-frame design at Nu-View, a Glasgow and Stirling installer. The useful question on any quote is not the material but which of the two jobs you are being priced for.

A £600 timber door and a £5,000 one are rarely the same job. Ask every quote to say whether it includes a new frame, which cylinder is fitted, and whether the doorset is certified, then compare like with like.

Double Glazing Cost Calculator Team

Steel front doors: thin evidence

Only one cost guide gives a residential steel front door price worth using. GreenMatch (last updated 12 June 2025) gives £450 to £2,100 for the door and £950 to £4,100 in total. Brow puts a steel security door at £2,500 to £5,000 installed and warns that steel is not the most thermally efficient option unless you specify an insulated core. Checkatrade and MyJobQuote publish no steel row. Treat both figures as indicative.

What adds to the cost of a front door

The headline rows are for a single door in a standard opening. The extras below are where two quotes for "a composite door" end up hundreds of pounds apart. Each is shown with its own source and date.

Prices as published; not added together. Brow's side panel figure covers side panels and toplights each.

Side panels and toplights are the biggest swing. Brow notes that they also change the structural opening, which may need a new lintel, and Nu-View prices a premium composite door with sidelights or bespoke glazing at £2,200 to £3,500 fitted against £1,400 to £2,200 for a standard one. They also change the paperwork: FENSA registers each glazed side panel as a separate window.

Hardware and locks. The cylinder is the one line worth paying for. Brow puts the difference between a basic euro cylinder and a TS007 three-star anti-snap one at around £80 to £150. The grades are explained below, and what a swap costs on a door you already own is in how to change a uPVC door lock.

Removal and disposalis sometimes in the price and sometimes not. MyJobQuote's supply and fit list includes removing the old door and frame and clearing the waste; Checkatrade lists disposal of old doors as often excluded. The same question applies to old windows, covered in window removal and disposal.

Door slab only or a full doorset. Hanging a new leaf in the old frame is legal and falls outside Part L: Approved Document L paragraph 10.6 says replacing a door in its existing frame is not providing a controlled fitting. Installers push back for uPVC and composite. Everest says those doors are made as a complete set of slab and frame with their own hinges, so the door cannot be fitted without its frame, and Brow says slab-only can work only in a genuinely sound frame less than ten years old. What a full replacement involves on site is set out in how to fit a uPVC door.

Labour, time and region. MyJobQuote puts labour at £150 to £350, and £20 to £60 more in London and the South East; Brow says £300 to £700. A standard swap takes 2 to 6 hours (Checkatrade) or 3 to 6 (Everest), and Everest says replacing sidelights can extend the job to a full day or more.

Security standards: what to ask for

There is no security test a replacement front door must pass. Approved Document Q applies to new dwellings only, and the Glass and Glazing Federation says the Building Regulations for England and Wales set no security requirement for replacement windows and doors. So the standard is whatever you ask for, and four names matter.

• PAS 24:2022. The current version is PAS 24:2022+A1:2024, published by BSI on 30 September 2024. BSI says it applies to new doorsets and windows as manufactured and before installation, that it is not material specific, and that it does not test component performance or installation. It covers doorsets with or without integral side panels and fanlights. In other words PAS 24 tests the whole doorset, not a composite leaf or a timber one, and not how well it was fitted.
• Secured by Design.The police scheme's standards apply to complete doorsets, and PAS 24 certification is one way to meet them. Its Police Preferred Specification means the product was independently tested and fully certified by a third party.
• TS007. A 1-star cylinder has basic approval with no testing for snapping; a 3-star cylinder is tested for resistance to snapping. A 1-star cylinder counts as anti-snap only when fitted with 2-star door furniture such as a handle or escutcheon (Master Locksmiths Association).
• SS312 Diamond.Sold Secure's test specification for lock cylinders. The MLA calls Diamond the highest grade a cylinder can achieve, treated as equivalent to a Kitemark 3-star cylinder for building regulations purposes, and says it currently applies only to euro profile cylinders.

The MLA calls the cylinder the weakest point on a multi-point door, because every locking point runs off it. A composite door is not secure because it is composite; ask for a PAS 24 or Secured by Design doorset and a TS007 3-star or SS312 Diamond cylinder, whatever the material.

Building Regulations for a replacement front door

The figures here are for England. A current Welsh door U-value and a government source for Scotland's replacement door rules were not found, so check locally there.

Part L. Approved Document L Table 4.2 sets a limiting U-value of 1.4 W/m²K for a new door in an existing home. A door with more than 60% of its internal face glazed can instead meet Doorset Energy Rating band C; any other door, band B. The 1.4 figure is the same either way; the 60% line changes only the energy-rating band. The 2021 edition took effect on 15 June 2022, with a transitional rule for work already notified, and timber doors were allowed up to 1.8 W/m²K or band E until 14 June 2023. From 15 June 2023 the full 1.4 applies to them too. External fire doorsets may be up to 1.8. More on how the rule works is in our guide to Part L building regulations.

Notification, and the 50% line. Schedule 4 of the Building Regulations 2010 lists replacing an external door, where the door and frame are not more than 50% glazed, as work that needs no building notice. It still has to comply. A door more than half glazed must either be fitted by an installer registered with a competent person scheme, which includes FENSA and CERTASS, who self-certifies the work, or go through building control, where a building notice costs £243 to £400 (2026/27). FENSA says only doors over 50% glazed must be registered with it, though all doors should comply, and that registered installations come with an insurance backed guarantee. How the schemes differ is in FENSA explained. Keep the two numbers apart: 60% sets the Part L energy band, 50% decides the paperwork, and glazed side panels count as windows either way.

Thresholds and glass. FENSA says the new threshold should be no higher than the old one, and the Planning Portal says a level threshold should stay level in homes built since 1999. Where a door needs safety glazing, the Planning Portal and FENSA accept laminated glass as well as toughened, whatever some sellers say.

Front doors for flats: a fire door job

A flat's front door onto a shared corridor or landing is not a front door in the usual sense. Approved Document B Table C1 asks for a door that separates a flat from a space in common use to be rated FD 30 S(E 30 Sa under the European test): 30 minutes' fire integrity, with the S meaning restricted smoke leakage, so smoke seals. Paragraph C5 says all fire doorsets, including flat entrance doors, should have a self-closing device, and C4 says the test evidence must apply to the complete installed assembly, because small differences in detail can change the rating. The same FD 30 S rating applies to a door between a house and its garage.

A composite FD30S doorset, supplied pre-hung in its frame, was listed at £841 (External Doors Online), £1,381 (Door Deals) and £1,559.99 to £1,667.99 (Dave's Doors) on 23 September 2026. External Doors Online and Dave's Doors show those prices including VAT. The Fire Risk Assessment Network (August 2026) puts installing a full doorset at £300 to £700 and notes that flat entrance doors often need upgraded hardware, self-closers, smoke seals and enhanced certification. Checkatrade lists certification among the things often left out of a door quote.

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 came into force on 23 January 2023. Regulation 10 covers fire doors in any building with two or more domestic premises and common parts, and flat entrance doors count. In a building whose top storey is above 11 m, the Responsible Person must use best endeavours to check flat entrance doors at least every 12 months. The government's guidance says a resident who wants to change their front door should do so with the knowledge and agreement of the Responsible Person. Where there is doubt, the resident may have to show the new door is fire-resisting, was fitted by a competent person, and supply its technical information. A new letterbox must be suitable for fire doors and fitted by a specialist contractor.

The same guidance is clear that an old door does not have to go. A door that met the standard when the block was built or the door was made still gives adequate protection if it is undamaged and the gaps are not too large (never more than 4 mm, except at the bottom), and missing smoke seals or a missing certificate do not by themselves make it unfit. Other costs of doing up a flat are on our flat and apartment costs page.

How long a front door lasts, and the guarantee

No independent study was found; every figure comes from people who sell doors. Everest gives timber 50 years or more and aluminium 45; Home Build Doors gives aluminium 30 to 40. Checkatrade says a solid wood door can last 60 years or more if cared for, repainted every 2 to 5 years; Brow says every 3 to 5, sooner on a south or west facing door. Sellers put composite at 30 to 35 years and uPVC at 20 to 25, and Brow is lower on both, at 25 to 30 and 15 to 20. Everest's uPVC, composite and timber prices include a 10-year guarantee.

Figures to ignore

Two numbers are copied across the cost guides and distort any average that includes them. A £250 to £500 "uPVC front door" appears in MyJobQuote's search snippet and MyBuilder's price table; it is a door-only price, not a fitted one. GreenMatch's £2,000 top installation figure inflates its fitted totals, and its aluminium total of £645 sits below its own supply floor plus installation floor. And composite doors are not twice as thick as uPVC: 44 to 48 mm against about 28 mm.

Which front door for which situation

• Lowest cost, standard opening: uPVC at £460 to £1,200, with a TS007 3-star or SS312 Diamond cylinder specified.
• Solid look, mid budget: composite at £1,150 to £2,500, plain door first; decorative glass and colour are where it climbs.
• Period house or conservation area:budget for an installer's timber doorset, from £4,000 (KJM), or £4,200 to £5,800 for Brow's conservation-area example, rather than a joiner's price, unless you have a joiner you trust and a sound frame.
• Modern, large glazing: aluminium at £1,500 to £4,000, and check the glazed share: over 50% means a registered installer or building control.
• Flat onto a common corridor: an FD30S doorset with a self-closer, agreed with the freeholder or managing agent before you order.
• Door that drags or will not lock: it may need adjusting rather than replacing; see how to adjust a uPVC door.

Three written quotes for the same specification are the quickest way to see which figure your door really sits at; how to make them comparable is in getting three quotes, and the warning signs of an inflated one in how to avoid overcharging.

Get your front door priced

If you want a new front door priced on your own opening, tell us what you have and Leads 2 Trade will arrange quotes from installers covering your postcode.

Price-checkedLast reviewed 23 September 2026

Reviewed byDouble Glazing Cost Calculator TeamCross-checked against Checkatrade, the FMB & GreenMatch