Hip roof replacement cost
How much does it cost to replace a hip roof?
The short answer
Checkatrade's October 2026 roof replacement guide puts a hip roof at £9,250 to £18,000, against £7,000 to £16,250 for a gable roof and £2,800 to £7,500 for a flat one, with VAT added to all three. A hip costs more because it has more edges to cut, more hip tiles to fix and often valleys as well. Treat these as UK averages; the price for your roof is written after the survey.
The published price bands for a hip roof, what the sloping ends add to the work, and how to read a quote for one.
Where a hip roof sits among the price bands
A hipped roof falls away on every side. The hip is the raised line at each outward corner where slopes join, and a four-slope roof has four of them running from ridge to eaves. A gable roof, by contrast, has two slopes and a wall carried up to a point at each end.
Checkatrade's roof replacement guide gives these bands by roof form, updated in October 2026 and headed plus VAT: hip roofs at £9,250 to £18,000, gable roofs at £7,000 to £16,250 and flat roofs at £2,800 to £7,500. Its overall average for any UK roof is around £8,000, with most between £4,000 and £19,000.
The hip band starts higher and ends higher than the gable band, and the overlap in the middle is wide. So a small hipped bungalow may well come in under a big gabled house. The form nudges the price, but the size and the covering move it further.
What each sloping end adds to the work
A hip end is an extra face of roof to cover. It needs its own battens, its own run of tiles and its own edge detail. Tiles are cut where they meet the hip line, and every cut is a few minutes of work. On a roof with four hips, that adds up.
The hip itself is capped with hip tiles from the ridge to the eaves. Each needs a solid bed to sit on and a fixing that holds it. At the bottom of the hip, a hip iron, a metal bracket, often stops the lowest tile sliding. The ridge at the top has to be tied into all the hips where they meet, and that junction is a point of detail on any hipped roof.
Gable roofs have verges instead, the edges where the tiles stop at the end wall, and those need their own fixing. The extra for a hip is real, but it is the detail of the junctions, not the size of the roof, that makes it so. A wide, hipped roof with a long ridge and four hips costs more than a plain one of the same area.
Hip tiles, ridge tiles and how they are fixed
Hip and ridge tiles take the worst of the weather because they sit at the top and along the angles, where the wind lifts. BS 5534 as revised in 2014 no longer leaves them to mortar, so each is fixed mechanically too. Marley's blog (February 2026) says bedded tiles and fittings should all carry a mechanical fixing.
There are two ways to do it. A bedded hip uses mortar plus a clip or screw. A dry-fix system uses a mechanical hip tray and fixings with no mortar at all, and BS 8612:2018 covers testing of dry-fixed systems on ridges, hips and verges. We say which system we are pricing in the written quote. Dry-fix leaves no mortar to crack and fall out.
Do not assume that the cost of a new hip roof includes proper hip fixing. Ask. A low quote that leaves the hips on mortar alone is not the same job, and the missing fixings are the part that fails first in a gale. Our answer on a new roof on a three-bed semi shows where hips fit into a house total.
Valleys, dormers and other junctions on a hipped roof
Hipped roofs often meet other roof forms: a bay window roof, a rear extension, a dormer. Each meeting creates a valley, an internal angle where two slopes channel water downwards. A valley is lined with lead or a valley trough and carries a lot of water, so it is a key place for quality.
Lead is sold by code; each code means a set thickness. Royston's brochure lists codes 4, 5 and 6 for flashings and codes 4 to 8 for a pitched valley gutter, and code 6 weighs 30.05 kg/m². A heavier code costs more per metre. A lead flashing can last over 80 years, according to MyJobQuote, as a typical figure.
Each extra junction is more labour and more lead, which is why one hipped house may cost far more than another of the same size. The survey notes every junction, with photographs, so the quote is built from your roof and not from an average. Our guide to roof replacement cost sets the hip figures beside the other forms.
Scaffold, rules and reading the quote
A hipped roof needs scaffold on all four sides, or close to it, since every edge has work. Checkatrade's scaffolding table has a two-storey semi at £875 or so each month and a detached house at £1,200, while its roof replacement guide puts scaffolding at £700 to £1,300.
A full re-roof also brings regulations. The Planning Portal sets limits below which building control approval is not normally needed, and a full re-roof passes the 50 per cent roof limit. Arun District Council's building control page says re-covering a roof needs approval. We tell you which applies and deal with any notification.
When you read a quote for a hip roof, look for the fixing of hips and ridge, the lead for valleys and flashings, the scaffold, VAT and waste. After the survey you receive one total in writing. See the roof replacement and new roofs page for the full job, and our answer on scaffolding for a roof replacement for the access side.
Related questions
Hip roof questions
Can a hipped roof be changed into a gable end?
It can be done, but it is a design change, not a replacement, and it usually needs planning permission checked and Building Regulations approval. It adds a wall and alters the roof structure. Ask your council's planning team first, before any drawings are paid for.
Why is the hip tile at the bottom of the slope held by a metal bracket?
Hip tiles sit on a steep angle, and the lowest tile would slide if only bedded. A hip iron, a small metal bracket fixed to the rafter, holds it in place. It is one of the small items a proper hip detail includes.