Cost guide
How much does outdoor lighting cost?
A garden lighting run is £200 to £900 and a driveway scheme £600 to £2,500. Trenching is the largest single line on most quotes, so a route that avoids it changes the price more than the fittings do.
Typical prices
Ranges, not quotes. A quote depends on your room.
| Work | Typical UK price |
|---|---|
| Low voltage run, transformer and six spike lights | £350 to £700 |
| Mains run to wall lights on an outbuilding | £300 to £650 |
| Driveway scheme, bollards or recessed uplights | £900 to £2,500 |
| Adding a photocell and timer to existing lighting | £120 to £280 |
| Armoured cable, per metre trenched and laid | £18 to £35 |
| Ducting laid while a patio or drive is open | £8 to £18 a metre |
Lay ducting while any hard landscaping is open, even with no lights planned. It is a few pounds a metre now against digging up a finished surface later, and nobody has ever regretted it.
What moves the price
- Mains against low voltage, which decides cable type, depth and protection.
- Trench length and what it crosses. A border is soft; a lawn is work; a patio is a rebuild.
- Distance from the consumer unit, and whether an outdoor circuit already exists.
- Number of fittings and whether they are spikes, wall lights, recessed uplights or bollards.
- Control. A switch, a photocell, a timer or an astro switch, and how many zones.
- Making good, and whether turf has to be lifted and relaid.
Who quotes for it
3 of the 133 electricians listed on this site take on outdoor lighting.
Most of them in one place: Shrewsbury (1), Edinburgh (1), Coventry (1).
Questions about outdoor lighting
Can I put lights in without digging up the lawn?
Usually, by routing around the perimeter under a border rather than straight across. It uses more cable and far less labour, and it survives the next time the garden gets changed.
Will it come on by itself?
With a photocell, at dusk. Add a timer or an astro switch so it goes off at a sensible hour, which is the control people most often wish they had specified.