Is slate more expensive than tiles?

The most direct comparison we can source is Checkatrade's roof repair cost guide, with the header dated October 2026. It prices work per m² for each covering, excluding VAT and excluding access such as scaffold. The table gives national typical ranges published by an outside cost guide; none of it is our own pricing.

These are repair figures. They show the order of the three materials, which is what you need for the comparison, but a full re-roof adds stripping, new battens, underlay, scaffold and disposal. Those costs are much the same whatever goes on top.

For slate on its own, MyBuilder's slate pricing page (updated 21 August 2026) gives £100 to £180 per m² installed. It splits that by origin: Welsh slate at £140 to £180 per m² and Spanish at £100 to £130. A semi with Spanish slate is put at £7,000 to £10,000, and it puts a slater's day rate at £200 to £300.

Notice what that does to the picture. Spanish slate installed overlaps the top of the clay repair range, so the premium for slate is not a fixed multiple. It depends on which slate you choose. Our guide on how much a slate roof costs prices slate jobs in detail; this page only sets slate beside tile, and the whole range of work is on our slate roofing page.

Be careful about comparing an installed figure from one guide with a repair figure from another. Different surveys, different dates and different assumptions about access make a neat subtraction unreliable. Where it matters, ask for both coverings priced on your own roof.

Cost per year of service is where slate recovers ground. MyBuilder quotes natural slate at 80 to 100 years or more, clay tile at 40 to 60 years and concrete at 30 to 50. Other sources differ. For clay, the sources split: one conservation article calls the usual 60 year figure unreliable because old clay roofs still stand, and a manufacturer blog quotes 60 years as a lower bound while stressing it promises nothing.

Read each figure as a band shaped by exposure, workmanship and upkeep. None is a promise. But the pattern is steady across sources: slate is expected to outlast the lower-priced coverings, and in some cases to outlast the house's owner.

A synthetic or fibre cement slate is a different product again. MyBuilder puts it at 30 to 50 years, much closer to concrete tile than to natural slate.

Take two houses, one roofed in slate and one in concrete tile, and imagine both owners staying put for decades. If a concrete roof reaches the end of its band in 30 to 50 years and slate is still going, the tile owner has paid for a second roof before the slate owner has needed a first replacement. We have deliberately not turned that into a single pounds-per-year number, because the sources disagree and any such figure would depend on guesses about inflation and repairs.

What you can fairly say is that the gap in the first invoice is real, the gap over the full life is smaller, and for owners who are selling soon it may not close at all. A slate roof is a better fit for a house you plan to keep, or for a building where slate is the original covering.

Several items move a quote more than the covering alone:

• Access. MyBuilder gives scaffold at about £1,125 on a typical full re-roof, and Checkatrade at £700 to £1,300. A steep lane or a terrace stepped up a hillside can push it higher, which is why we plan it into the quote.
• Roof shape. Hips, valleys and dormers take more slates cut to fit than a plain gable.
• Fixings and underlay. Better nails and underlay cost more than the basic options, and the quote should name which are being used.
• Weight. Changing from tile to slate or back can alter the load on the roof timbers, which can bring in a structural check. Our answer on whether slate is too heavy for your roof explains when.

One practical warning. Slate varies widely in quality, and an unusually low per-m² figure can mean a thin, poorly graded product that begins to flake within a few years. Delamination is the main sign of that, and the roof then needs repairs far sooner than the tables above suggest. Ask for the origin, thickness and grade of any slate quoted, and for the headlap and fixings to be written on the quote.

Slate is also more fragile underfoot than tile, which affects repair costs later because a roofer has to reach the slope without breaking slates; see can you walk on a slate roof for how that is done.

After a survey, the written quote covers the whole job, so slate and tile can be compared on your own roof rather than on averages. Whichever covering you pick, the workmanship guarantee runs for 10 years and is given in writing. On an older house we keep to what is already there, so a slate roof stays slate.