0.20
Man hours per square metre, with preparation and both coats inside it.
7 hr
A working day on the tools, which is our assumption and not a source.
35 m²
Walls painted in a day, one figure divided by the other, and the rest of the week is prep and drying.
“Often, it's not the painting that takes the time, it's the prep needed to get to the painting stage. It's not that unusual for me to spend two weeks on a job, and only get round to painting the walls on the final day.”
Robin Gofton, professional decorator, Decorator's Forum UK· 5 March 2025
Your next step
You know how many days the room takes, so the next step is what each of those days should cost.
The Rate Sorted calculator opens on decorator, builds your day rate from your own overheads, then turns the days and the rate into a quote you can send.
What the published labour constants say
Estimators price painting from published man hours per square metre.
| Task | Hours per m² | Per day |
|---|---|---|
| Emulsion on walls, two coats | 0.20 | 35 m² |
| Emulsion on ceilings, two coats | 0.25 | 28 m² |
| Gloss on walls, two coats | 0.30 | 23 m² |
| Gloss on joinery and windows, two coats | 0.45 | 15 m² |
SourceMethvin building constants, updated 1 August 2026, checked 18 August 2026Barsquare metres covered per day
The per day column is our arithmetic and not a published figure: the 7 hour working day divided by the published rate.
The 7 hour working day is our assumption, not a published figure.
We use it because tradespeople on MoneySavingExpert report decorator days of roughly 8.30am to 3.30pm.
Not a per coat rate
Each rate covers preparing and applying two coats as one job.
It is not a per coat rate.
A one coat job is not half of it, because the preparation sits inside the constant and preparation does not halve.
No source publishes a per coat figure, so this page does not either.
CROSS CHECK ONE
Uses the same 0.20 hours per square metre for two coat emulsion on walls.
A 2007 constant matching a register updated in June 2026 means the labour constant has held for nearly two decades.
CROSS CHECK TWO
Publishes the same labour constant structure behind a paywall.
Why drying time is the constraint nobody prices
Labour constants measure brush time, and drying time is what stretches the calendar.
Solvent based gloss for woodwork
Dulux Trade High Gloss
Touch dry4 to 6 hours
Recoat16 to 24 hours
One coat per day on woodwork.
This is why gloss stretches a job across days and why a single front door can take two days.
Water based emulsion for walls and ceilings
Dulux Trade Vinyl Matt
Touch dry1 to 2 hours
Recoat2 to 4 hours
Two coats in a day is the realistic ceiling for emulsion.
The tools are cheap. The hours are not.
How many days each job type takes
Every range spans what its named sources publish, and nothing is rounded to look tidier than the evidence.
- Box room or single bedroom1 to 2 days
A roughly 3.7 metre by 3.7 metre (12 foot by 12 foot) bedroom took one MoneySavingExpert poster two days including clearing furniture, stripping, making good and two coats on walls and ceiling.
The one day floor is the labour constants arithmetic for a straightforward repaint with sound walls.
- Living room2 to 4 days
Gofton puts a small room at 2 to 3 days and a large room at 3 to 4 days, done properly.
- Hall, stairs and landing3.5 to 7 days
An Oxfordshire hall and landing took a professional 3.5 days (MoneySavingExpert, October 2022).
Gofton puts a medium hall, stairs and landing at 6 to 7 days and a large period property at up to 10.
MoneySavingExpert forum · Robin Gofton, Decorator's Forum UK
- Three bed house, full interior1 to 2+ weeks
A week for a freshen up, two weeks or more done properly.
MoneySavingExpert posters report a whole house blitzed in 6 days by two people and a four bed taking two weeks.
Gofton reports jobs where two weeks of work end with the walls painted on the final day.
MoneySavingExpert forum · Robin Gofton, Decorator's Forum UK
Fig. 02 · the figure that does not exist
Nobody has measured how much longer bad walls take.
There is no published UK figure for how much longer heavy filling takes than sound walls.
The data does not exist.
So this page publishes no prep multiplier table, and will not invent one to fill the space where a published one would sit.
Decorators agree prep is the biggest variable, as the quote above shows.
Agreeing it matters is not the same as measuring it.
If a named UK source ever quantifies it, this page will carry the figure with the source beside it.
What that costs where you are
Type a town and land on what these job lengths come to at that town's own decorator rate.
All 30 towns, by regionCommon questions
The same answers the structured data on this page gives a search engine, word for word.
How long does it take to paint a room?
A box room or single bedroom: 1 to 2 days.
Living room: 2 to 4 days.
Those are the ranges named decorators and forum posters report for the whole job, clearing and preparation included, not brush time alone.
Our worked example, a 4 metre by 4 metre bedroom carrying 35 square metres of wall, comes to 12.8 hours on the tools, which we publish as 1.5 to 2.5 days once preparation and drying are allowed for.
How much wall can a decorator paint in a day?
About 35 square metres of wall, two coats.
That is our arithmetic, not a published figure: 7 assumed hours on the tools divided by Methvin's published 0.2 man hours per square metre.
Each rate covers preparing and applying two coats as one job.
How long does paint take to dry before the next coat?
Dulux Trade Vinyl Matt recoats in 2 to 4 hours, so two coats of emulsion in one day is realistic.
Dulux Trade High Gloss recoats in 16 to 24 hours, which is one coat of gloss a day and the single biggest reason a small job stretches across days.
Both windows come from the manufacturer technical data sheets, not from us.
How much longer does a room with bad walls take?
There is no published UK figure for how much longer heavy filling takes than sound walls.
The data does not exist.
So this page publishes no prep multiplier table, and will not invent one to fill the space where a published one would sit.
Robin Gofton, professional decorator, Decorator's Forum UK, puts it plainly: two weeks on a job is not unusual, with the walls painted on the final day.
How this page is built
Published constants
Brush time is data from Methvin's free building constants, cross checked per the Spon's and BCIS registers.
Manufacturer drying times
Recoat windows are set according to Dulux Trade technical data sheets.
Sourced job ranges
Day ranges span the jobs reported by a named professional decorator and by forum posters.
Bare stays bare
Where no published figure exists, the page says so.
Labour rates, drying windows and job reports are shown exactly as their sources publish them.
Per day coverage is derived: our assumed 7 hours on the tools divided by the published rate.
The payoff arrives only after the hours nobody prices.
Take the data
Every constant and drying window on this page is in the file, with the same sources and the same date.
DOWNLOAD · CSVdecorator-task-durations-uk.csvThe four labour constants and both drying windows, each with its named source.
Cite this pageThe Day Rate Report, how long decorating takes, 13 July 2026, https://thedayrate.co.uk/decorator/how-long-to-paint-a-room/
Embed this figure
The decorating card carries the daily coverage figure, and the link goes to this guide.
<a href="https://thedayrate.co.uk/decorator/how-long-to-paint-a-room/"><img src="https://thedayrate.co.uk/og/how-long-does-decorating-take.png" alt="How long decorating takes, from sourced UK labour constants, The Day Rate Report" width="1200" height="630"></a>
You are welcome to cite that no UK prep multiplier exists.
The 4 labour constants and both drying windows are free to use in an article or a fact check, and a credit with a link back is all we ask, under CC BY 4.0.
Now you know how long the work takes.See what decorators charge for it, town by town.Decorator day rates by town →Pricing the work rather than buying it?What every trade on this site goes for, and how far the guides disagree.What should I charge →Every figure here has a named source.The method, the register and the sanity checks.Read the methodology →