What Does a Luxury Interior Designer Cost in London?

Here’s what an interior designer will cost you. Our design fees start at £28,000. The projects we take on usually carry a furnishing budget of £200,000 or more, on top of any building work.

Those are the numbers most studios won’t put in writing. We’d rather you had them now than three meetings in. If they fit, the rest of this piece explains what you get for them. If they don’t, you’ve lost five minutes, not five weeks.

We’ve run Kia Designs for over 18 years and more than 200 projects. In 2019 I gave a talk at the BIID‘s Inside Knowledge conference on one question: what is an interior designer actually worth? This is the shorter version.

What the design fee covers

The fee pays for the thinking, the drawings and the running of the project. Furniture and building work are separate budgets. There’s a quick summary on our pricing page, and the full list of our services.

On a typical project it covers:

1. The brief. How you actually live, not how a magazine says you should. Who cooks, who works from home, where the coats end up.
2. Space planning and concept. Layouts, mood and material direction, and 3D visuals so you can see it before anyone picks up a drill.
3. Technical drawings. Lighting and electrical plans, joinery drawings, elevations, finishes and paint schedules. The builder prices and builds from these.
4. Tendering. We send the drawings to contractors we trust, compare like with like, and help you pick.
5. Procurement. Sourcing, ordering, chasing, checking and storing every item until site is ready for it.
6. On site. Regular visits, answering the builder’s questions before they guess, and a snag list at the end.
7. Installation and styling. The day everything arrives and the house becomes a home.

Our interior architecture service, for larger homes and listed properties, adds planning applications and structural coordination with architects and engineers. As a guide, projects like these cost £175–£250 per square foot all in, so the building work on a 4,000 sq ft house would come to roughly £700,000–£1 million. Our design fee on a house that size would usually sit between £50,000 and £100,000.

Furniture and buying. We charge a procurement fee of 25% on the furniture and accessories we buy for you. Because we buy at trade prices, the discount usually cancels out most or all of our fee on those items. On one project we compared four standard pieces against shop prices. The client paid 38% less through us, after our mark-up.

Where the rest of the money goes

A whole-house project has three pots of money. It helps to think about them separately from day one.

Pot	What’s in it	Guide
Design fee	Our time: brief, drawings, tendering, project running	From £28,000
Furnishing (FF&E)	Furniture, lighting, curtains, rugs, art, accessories	Usually from £200,000
Building work	Contractor, joinery, kitchens, bathrooms, flooring, electrics	Set by the scope and the tender

Always hold back a contingency of around 10–15% of the build for what’s found behind the walls. Older London houses always have something.

A real example: a six-bedroom townhouse in Kensington came in at roughly £600,000 all in, about £135 per square foot. It stayed there because the layout already worked and we didn’t move walls for the sake of it. With prices up 12–15% since, the same job today would be nearer £150–£155 per square foot.

Across the whole project, build included, our design fee usually works out at 4–11% of the total spend.

The biggest single driver of cost isn’t the marble or the fabric. It’s the number of decisions changed after the builder has started.

Does an interior designer cost less than doing it yourself?

Sometimes, on paper. Always, in time and mistakes.

On paper. Trade discounts on furniture, fabric and lighting typically run between 15% and 40%. Many suppliers won’t sell to the public at all, or set minimum spends a single household won’t reach.

In time. One four-bedroom flat we renovated had over 800 items ordered, delivered across five months. Couriers arrive any time from 6am to 10pm. We hold everything in a secure warehouse and deliver to site in one go. Then there are the receipts: often 500 or more per project, each needed for VAT, warranties and proof of ownership.

In mistakes. A socket in the wrong place costs very little on a drawing. Once the walls are plastered, it costs a day of an electrician, a plasterer and a decorator. Multiply that across a house. Most of what we do is making those decisions early, on paper, where they’re cheap.

In value. We once worked on a house where the street rose 21% in value over two years. That house rose 63%. Design wasn’t the only reason, but it wasn’t a coincidence either.

Is the cost of an interior designer worth it for your project?

We’re probably a good fit if:

• You’re renovating or furnishing a whole house or apartment, not one room.
• You’d rather make a decision once, properly, than three times.
• You don’t have the hours to chase 30 suppliers, or the appetite to learn how.
• The building is complicated: listed, a basement, an extension, or you’re overseas while the work happens.

We’re probably not the right fit if the budget is tight enough that our fee would come out of the furniture. We’d rather tell you that at the start. We’d turn down the work before we’d let the fee squeeze the thing you’re paying for.

Questions we’re often asked

How much does an interior designer cost?
It depends on the size of the project and how much of it the designer runs. At Kia Designs, design fees start at £28,000, and we charge 25% on the pieces we buy for you. Furnishing budgets on our projects usually start at £200,000, before any building work.

How do interior designers charge in London?
Most use one of three methods: an hourly rate, a fixed fee for an agreed scope, or a percentage of the project spend. Many also add a mark-up on furniture they buy for you. Before comparing quotes, ask each designer which method they use and what is and isn’t included. We charge a fixed design fee plus a procurement fee, so you know the design cost before any work starts.

Is the first consultation free?
Yes. The first conversation costs nothing, and we can usually meet within a few days.

Do you charge by the hour or a fixed fee?
Two fees. A design fee for our time, and a 25% procurement fee on the pieces we buy for you.

When do I pay?
The design fee is paid up front, once the contract is signed. Procurement is paid as a retainer, and supplier invoices are set against it as you sign them off. That usually starts once the design is mostly settled and we’re down to details. On longer projects we often split it: the built-in items first, then the softer pieces.

Can I use my own builder?
Yes. We’ll work alongside them and give them the drawings they need to price and build.

Can you work with furniture I already own?
Yes. Most homes we design keep a few pieces that matter to the client. We design around them rather than replacing them for the sake of a clean sweep.

How long does a project take?
If the kitchen and bathrooms are already in and it’s mainly interior design, usually around six months. If there’s building work, think in years rather than months. Our project timeline guide breaks it down stage by stage.

Are you BIID registered?
Yes. Here’s why that matters.

The short version

A good interior designer is a real cost. So is a house built from 400 decisions made in a hurry, half of them on site.

If you’re weighing up a project and want a straight answer on whether the numbers work, we’re happy to talk it through. Even when the answer is that you don’t need us yet.

If you’re still comparing studios, here’s how to choose the right one, and what past clients say about working with us.

Tell us about your project. The first conversation is free, and we can usually meet within a few days. It’s as much about us checking we’re the right studio for your project as you checking us.