How Much Does Artex Removal Cost?

Quick Answer

£15–£30/m² to skim over, £16–£50/m² for full non-asbestos removal, £35–£100/m² if asbestos is confirmed

Indicative 2026 UK estimates for a typical ceiling. Skimming over is the cheapest option and, done properly, the safest one if the Artex is untested or in sound condition. If asbestos is confirmed, budget roughly £400–£1,500 for a typical room. Prices vary by region, access and condition. These are estimates, not a quote.

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Test It Before You Touch It

Textured coatings applied before around 2000 may contain chrysotile (white asbestos): it was only fully banned in the UK in 1999, though manufacturers had mostly stopped using it in new stock from around 1984. Never sand, dry-scrape or drill into untested Artex; that is exactly how fibres become airborne. Get a sample tested before booking any removal work. See our asbestos survey and testing cost guide for what that costs and when you legally need one.

Cost by Removal Route (2026 UK Estimates)

There are three realistic routes, and the price gap between them is large. The table blends 2026 guide prices from MyJobQuote, Checkatrade, AIB Solutions and Safe:Environment (full sourcing below); individual guides vary within these bands, so treat them as a planning range rather than a quote.

UK Artex removal guide prices by method, 2026
Route	Guide price per m²	Typical 12–15m² ceiling
Skim over (plaster over, don’t remove)	£15–£30	£250–£700
Full removal, no asbestos (steam-and-scrape or chemical strip)	£16–£50	£250–£750
Asbestos-positive, trained/licensed-standard removal	£35–£100	£400–£1,500

Skim Over: the Cheapest Option

Coating the Artex with PVA and applying a 3–5mm skim of multi-finish plaster over the top is usually the cheapest way to lose the texture, and it avoids disturbing the coating at all. Checkatrade’s 2026 guide prices simple skimming at £9.65–£31.71 per m² (a bonding-agent skim at the low end, up to a full multi-finish-plaster skim at the top); MyJobQuote’s wider 2026 UK range, which stretches to cover London and South East rates, runs £14–£47 per m² for the same job, with a typical total of £250–£700. Work out the materials side of the job, bags of plaster included, with the skim coat calculator.

Skimming over is only appropriate once you know what you are covering. If the ceiling is untested, get it tested first: skimming over confirmed asbestos-containing Artex is a recognised low-disturbance option (sometimes called encapsulation), but it should still be planned and, for anything beyond a very small patch, carried out by a trained contractor rather than treated as an ordinary redecorating job.

Full Removal Without Asbestos

Once testing confirms the Artex is asbestos-free, steaming and scraping or a chemical Artex remover (products like X-Tex or Artex Easistrip) will strip it back to bare plaster. MyJobQuote’s 2026 guide prices steam removal at £14–£47 per m² (£250–£700 typical job) and chemical removal at £16–£50 per m² (£280–£750 typical job); Checkatrade puts steam removal at an average of about £16 per m² and chemical removal at £22.60–£32.54 per m². Steam and scrape is labour-intensive and usually the cheaper of the two; chemical removal needs dwell time for the gel to work but can be tidier. Either way the ceiling will need a fresh skim or mist coat afterwards, which is not always included in these figures, so ask what a quote covers.

If Asbestos Is Confirmed: What Licensed-Standard Removal Costs

This is the most expensive route because it includes containment, air testing after the work and disposal of the waste as hazardous material at a licensed site, on top of the removal itself. AIB Solutions’ 2026 guide prices encapsulation (seal and skim over confirmed asbestos Artex) at £200–£600 per room and full wet removal (steam or gel, classed as Notifiable Non-Licensed Work) at £400–£1,200 per room. Safe:Environment’s guide gives a similar spread: £300–£700 for a single room ceiling or wall, rising to £700–£1,500 for multiple rooms or a large ceiling, and £1,500–£3,000 or more for an entire house. MyJobQuote’s 2026 per-m² figures for asbestos-containing Artex range from about £17 to £127 depending on method and access, which is consistent with our own artex removal estimator’s mid-band rate of £35–£60+ per m² for professional removal.

Method matters more than area here, and published guides genuinely disagree because they are pricing different scopes of work. A standard Notifiable Non-Licensed Work job, steamed or gelled off and priced per room, sits at the low end: remove-asbestos.uk prices removing a 20m² asbestos Artex ceiling at £400–£600, in the same range as AIB Solutions’ £400–£1,200-per-room wet removal quoted above. Oracle Asbestos’s 2026 guide, by contrast, prices a full 20m² ceiling strip with enclosure-grade containment at £2,750–£6,000 at the top end: that reflects a much bigger job (full negative-pressure enclosure, licensed-contractor overhead, extended air testing), not a like-for-like alternative to a standard NNLW room removal. Always check exactly what method and containment level a quote assumes before comparing prices between guides; our asbestos survey and testing cost guide covers the same spread in more detail. Scope a specific job with the asbestos removal calculator.

What HSE Actually Requires

HSE, the enforcing authority for the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 (CAR 2012), does not automatically class Artex and textured-coating removal as licensed work in the way it does asbestos insulating board, sprayed coatings or pipe lagging. Its guidance on non-licensed and notifiable non-licensed work splits it by scale and method:

Non-licensed work: small areas removed with dust-suppressing methods to support another job, such as fitting a smoke alarm or light fitting, and drilling for fixtures and fittings
Notifiable Non-Licensed Work (NNLW): large-scale removal using steaming or gelling methods, which covers most whole-ceiling jobs. HSE guidance treats this as the default when a textured coating is deliberately disturbed to strip it. NNLW must be notified to the enforcing authority and carried out by operatives with the correct level of information, instruction and training

Alongside HSE’s NNLW notification rules, the wider duties in the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 apply to any work on asbestos-containing material: suitable respiratory protective equipment for the task, and disposal of the waste as hazardous waste with a consignment note under the Hazardous Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2005. In practice that means an HSE-licensed contractor is not a legal requirement for Artex removal the way it is for lagging or insulating board, but a trained, competent contractor is still essential for anything beyond a small patch, and it is worth using one who is used to NNLW notification and hazardous-waste consignment even if they are not formally “licensed”. Many specialist firms hold an HSE licence anyway because they also handle materials that do require one, and using one removes any doubt.

What Moves the Price

Region: London and the South East sit at the top of every guide’s range; the rest of the UK tends towards the lower end
Access: ceiling height, whether a scaffold tower is needed, and how much furniture has to be moved and protected
Condition: sound, well-bonded Artex is cheaper to treat than loose, flaking or heavily painted-over coatings, which need extra care to stop material breaking up
Scale: whole-house jobs usually cost less per room than a single room, since setup, containment and waste collection are spread across more area; AIB Solutions notes savings on whole-house programmes
Waste disposal: ordinary building waste goes in a skip (our calculator defaults to £250 for skip hire); asbestos waste must go to a licensed hazardous-waste site with a consignment note, which costs more
Redecoration: none of the figures above include repainting or a fresh skim once the coating is gone, unless the quote says so

Important Notes

All figures are guide prices from published 2026 UK cost guides, not quotes: get at least three itemised quotes for anything beyond a small patch
Confirm whether a quote includes VAT, skip hire, and hazardous-waste disposal, since these are commonly quoted separately
Never disturb suspected asbestos to “have a look”: test it first, using the guide linked above
A management survey or single sample test does not itself remove anything: it only tells you which route applies
Some general “asbestos removal cost” guides quote a single blanket rate that spans all asbestos-containing materials and job sizes, including boards and lagging; the figures on this page are specific to Artex and other textured coatings, which typically involve far less material and disruption

Figures cross-checked July 2026 against MyJobQuote’s and Checkatrade’s 2026 Artex removal cost guides, AIB Solutions’ 2026 textured-coating removal guide, Safe:Environment’s asbestos Artex removal guide, Oracle Asbestos’ 2026 removal cost guide and remove-asbestos.uk’s Artex removal pricing. Licensing position from HSE guidance on non-licensed work and Notifiable Non-Licensed Work (hse.gov.uk/asbestos/licensing/), read alongside the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 and the Hazardous Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2005 for the respiratory-protection and waste-consignment specifics. Last updated: July 2026.