Concrete Driveway Cost in the UK (2026)
Published: 25 September 2026
The straight answer: a plain or brushed concrete driveway costs £85–£125 per square metre installed in 2026, so a two-car 30m² drive is £2,500–£4,000. Below is a worked calculator, the labour and materials split, what each finish adds, and what you save by buying the concrete yourself.
Concrete Driveway Cost per m² in 2026
MyJobQuote's concrete driveway guide, updated September 2026, prices materials at £50–£75 per m² and labour at £33–£55, which is £85–£125 per m² installed. Checkatrade's April 2026 driveway table lands in the middle: £50 of material plus £45 of installation, £95 per m², with labour generally £30–£50 per m². Its separate concrete pouring guide gives driveway labour at £40–£50 per m² or £220–£450 a day, and a whole-driveway range of £600–£8,000 with an average of £4,000.
| Source (date) | Materials | Labour | Installed |
|---|---|---|---|
| MyJobQuote (September 2026) | £50–£75 per m² | £33–£55 per m² | £85–£125 per m² |
| Checkatrade driveway guide (April 2026) | £50 per m² | £45 per m² | £95 per m² |
| Homebuilding & Renovating (May 2025) | £50–£70 per m² poured | £200–£350 a day | — |
| WhatCost (January 2025) | £40–£50 per m² | £150–£200 a day per person | 30m² two-car drive £3,750 average |
Pattern imprinted concrete is a different product at a different price, £75–£130 per m² installed, and has its own imprinted concrete cost guide. The figures here are for plain, brushed and tamped drives, which is what most Birmingham front gardens get.
Concrete Driveway Cost Calculator: Area × Rate
There is no magic in a driveway calculator: the area in square metres multiplied by a rate per square metre, plus the fixed items. Measure the length and width, multiply, and read across.
| Area | Typical drive | At £85 per m² | At £125 per m² | What the guides publish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15m² (5m × 3m) | Single car; the council-minimum hardstanding is 4.75m deep | £1,275 | £1,875 | See the note below: the day rate takes over |
| 20m² | Single car, terrace frontage | £1,700 | £2,500 | Checkatrade £2,300 |
| 30m² | Two cars, 1930s semi | £2,550 | £3,750 | MyJobQuote £2,500–£4,000; WhatCost £3,750 |
| 40m² | Two cars plus a path | £3,400 | £5,000 | Checkatrade Birmingham average £3,933 (range £2,829–£5,504) |
| 50m² | Two cars side by side | £4,250 | £6,250 | Checkatrade £4,750 |
| 60m² | Three or four cars | £5,100 | £7,500 | MyJobQuote £5,000–£7,500 |
| 100m² | Corner plot, full frontage | £8,500 | £12,500 | Checkatrade £7,500; MyJobQuote £7,500–£11,000 for 90m² |
The arithmetic understates small drives. A crew of two or more is £300–£500 a day (MyJobQuote) and a 5m × 3m drive still takes two days, so its fixed costs alone, two days of labour, a skip at £240–£550 and about £260 of concrete, come to £1,100–£1,800 before the sub-base and edgings. Checkatrade's £2,300 for 20m², £115 per m² against its own £95 headline, is the same effect.
Labour vs Materials
On a plain drive the split is closer to even than on an imprinted one: MyJobQuote's £50–£75 of materials against £33–£55 of labour is roughly 60/40, and Checkatrade's £50 plus £45 is nearer 50/50. What sits inside each half:
| Item | 2026 guide rate | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Concrete: 150mm air-entrained C25/30 (0.15m³ per m²) | From £115 per m³ plus VAT | Our driveway concrete page |
| MOT Type 1 sub-base, compacted | £15–£25 per m² | MyJobQuote |
| A142 steel mesh, where specified | £10–£20 per m² | MyJobQuote |
| Membrane | £2–£5 per m² | MyJobQuote |
| Edging | £15–£40 per linear metre | MyJobQuote |
| Groundworks and excavation | £20–£100 per m² | Checkatrade |
| Skip and mini-digger | £240–£550 a skip; £150–£220 a day for the digger | MyJobQuote |
| Labour | £33–£55 per m², or £300–£500 a day for two or more | MyJobQuote |
Time on site is short. MyJobQuote allows two to three days for 30m² and three to five for 60m²; Checkatrade's Birmingham page says two to four days, then seven to ten days of curing before you park. You can walk on it after 24–48 hours; full design strength takes 28 days.
Plain, Brushed, Tamped, Exposed Aggregate or Imprinted
The finish is decided in the last hour before the concrete goes off, and it changes the price less than people expect until you reach colour and imprinting.
| Finish | What it is | 2026 guide cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tamped | Ridges left by a tamping beam drawn across the wet slab | Baseline, £85–£125 per m² | Traditional and grippy; the ridges hold dirt |
| Brushed | Floated, then dragged with a stiff brush across the direction of travel | Baseline | Pavingexpert's choice for traction; the usual domestic finish |
| Float | Steel-floated smooth | Baseline | Clean-looking but slippery when wet; not for slopes |
| Coloured | Pigment through the mix or a surface hardener | Adds £15–£25 per m² (MyJobQuote); WhatCost puts coloured concrete at about £80 per m² | Ask to see a cured sample, not a brochure |
| Exposed aggregate | The top paste washed off to show the stone | £70–£100 per m² (MyJobQuote) | Premium look and good grip |
| Pattern imprinted | Colour hardener and texture mats | £75–£130 per m² installed | Needs resealing every 3–5 years; see the imprinted driveways page |
For patios, concretecalculate's 2026 calculator ranks the finishes the same way: basic £60–£85 per m², brushed £70–£95, pattern imprinted £100–£145 and exposed aggregate £115–£160; the order carries over to drives. One rule from our driveway mix page: air-entrained concrete must not be power-floated, so brushed or tamped is the right finish.
What You Save by Buying the Concrete Yourself
Concrete is a smaller share of a driveway than most people expect, because a driveway is mostly digging, stone and labour. The slab maths: guidance is a depth of around 150mm on a compacted sub-base, so the volume is length × width × 0.15. A 5m × 3m drive is 2.25m³; order around 2.5m³ with contingency. At our delivery partners' air-entrained C25/30 driveway mix from £115 per m³ plus VAT, that is roughly £260–£290 plus VAT of concrete, metered as it pours.
| 5m × 3m drive (15m²) | 30m² two-car drive | |
|---|---|---|
| Concrete at 150mm | 2.25m³ (order 2.5m³) | 4.5m³ (order about 5m³) |
| Concrete, supply only, from £115 per m³ | About £260–£290 plus VAT | About £520–£575 plus VAT |
| Type 1 sub-base at £15–£25 per m² | £225–£375 | £450–£750 |
| Mesh (£10–£20) and membrane (£2–£5) per m² | £180–£375 | £360–£750 |
| Skip (£240–£550) and mini-digger (£150–£220 a day) | £390–£770 | £540–£990, digger for two days |
| Supply-only materials and hire, before any labour | About £1,050–£1,800 | About £1,900–£3,100 |
| Supply and lay, installed at £85–£125 per m² | Day-rate floor applies (see the calculator note) | £2,500–£4,000 (MyJobQuote) |
MyJobQuote's labour rate of £33–£55 per m² is £990–£1,650 on a 30m² drive. That is what supply and lay buys: the digging and compacting, and the skill of getting the falls, joints and finish right in the hour or two before the concrete stiffens. Supply only makes sense with a builder or previous experience; it is a poor first DIY job on a front garden the whole street can see. Either way the mix is the same: see concrete for driveways, run your dimensions through the concrete calculator, and order small drives from 0.5m³ through mini mix.
Removal, Dropped Kerbs and the Other Lines on a Quote
- Removing the old drive. £500–£2,000 (MyJobQuote) depending on what it is and how many skips it fills; skips are £240–£550, or £125–£320 a week in Checkatrade's table, and a mini-digger £150–£220 a day.
- Extending rather than replacing. Checkatrade prices a driveway extension at £100–£250 per m², more per metre than a new drive because of the tie-in and the small area.
- Drainage and planning. A front-garden drive over 5m² needs planning permission unless the rainwater drains to a lawn, border or soakaway inside your boundary. A channel and soakaway is the usual answer, and Checkatrade's older imprinted guide carries a planning application as a £150 line.
- A dropped kerb. Always separate. Nationally £800–£2,500 for construction (droppedkerbplanning.co.uk and BookaBuilderUK, 2026) and MyJobQuote allows £2,000; Birmingham's fees are below.
- VAT. Concrete supply is always quoted plus VAT; installed quotes vary, so ask.
Birmingham and the West Midlands
Checkatrade's Birmingham concrete-driveway listings say a drive here costs £2,829–£5,504, average £3,933, takes two to four days to install plus seven to ten days of curing, and lasts 30 to 40 years or more. That average sits on a 40m² drive at just under £100 per m², squarely inside the national band, and the concrete itself is cheaper than in the south: Midlands ready mix runs 15–20% below London, as our prices guide explains.
The ground is what a local quote has to get right. Around 30% of Birmingham's homes are interwar semis with front gardens, and under most of them is clay: Mercia Mudstone whose top metre or two behaves as shrinkable clay, or clayey glacial till across the south-west of the city, with made ground over old workings in the Black Country. A slab on 50mm of stone over clay settles and cracks; 100–150mm of compacted Type 1 does not, and A142 mesh is cheap insurance where the ground is suspect.
Water is the other local rule. Birmingham City Council requires planning permission to resurface more than 5m² of a private drive with an impermeable surface unless the rainwater is kept off the road, and calls water flowing across the pavement illegal; the flash floods of 27 August 2026 were the latest reminder why. For the crossing itself the council charges a £125 application fee and a £375 administration fee, prices construction after inspection, needs the drive at least 4.75m deep and drained before it will build, and takes at least 16 weeks from payment. Our driveway rules guide has the detail. Our installation partners quote across the region, including Wolverhampton, Coventry, Dudley and West Bromwich.
Concrete Driveway Cost FAQs
How much does a concrete driveway cost per square metre in the UK?
£85–£125 per m² installed for a plain or brushed drive, from MyJobQuote's September 2026 guide (£50–£75 of materials plus £33–£55 of labour). Checkatrade's April 2026 table says £95 per m². Pattern imprinted concrete is a different product at £75–£130 per m².
How much is a two-car concrete driveway?
A 30m² drive is £2,500–£4,000 as a 2026 guide (MyJobQuote), with WhatCost's average at £3,750, over two to three days on site; Checkatrade's Birmingham listings average £3,933. Removing the old surface adds £500–£2,000 and a dropped kerb is priced separately.
How much concrete do I need for a driveway?
Length × width × 0.15 for the usual 150mm depth. A 5m × 3m drive is 2.25m³ (order about 2.5m³) and a 30m² drive is 4.5m³. At our delivery partners' air-entrained C25/30 driveway mix from £115 per m³ plus VAT, the 5m × 3m drive is roughly £260–£290 plus VAT of concrete.
Is a concrete driveway cheaper than block paving or tarmac?
Checkatrade's April 2026 table prices a 50m² drive at £4,750 in concrete, £5,000 in block paving, £6,000 in resin bound, £4,500 in tarmac and £3,000 in gravel. Concrete is a little dearer than tarmac and cheaper than block paving and resin, and its Birmingham lifespan of 30 to 40 years or more is the longest of the five.
Does a concrete driveway need planning permission?
Concrete is impermeable, so a front-garden drive of more than 5m² needs planning permission unless the rainwater drains to a lawn, border or soakaway inside your boundary; a channel to a soakaway is the usual answer. A dropped kerb is a separate application to the highway authority: in Birmingham a £125 application fee and a £375 administration fee before construction.
Getting a Concrete Driveway Priced
Give us the length, the width and the postcode and we price it the same working day from the rates above, then arrange a vetted local installation partner to survey it and quote in writing. Installed work is carried out by a vetted local partner; you'll be told who is attending before the job is booked.
The service page for laid drives is concrete driveways in Birmingham. For a patterned finish, see imprinted concrete driveways; for how the surfaces stack up against each other, imprinted concrete vs block paving vs resin.
Want a Number for Your Drive?
Length, width and postcode — we'll price it the same working day from the 2026 rates above, supply only or supply and lay.