Get More Tiling Work
Written by James Walker · Last reviewed 16 August 2026
James Walker has 2 degrees in construction (BSc (Hons) Building Surveying · MSc Environmental Design of Buildings) and an extensive background in issue resolution, resolving over £4 billion of consumer issues.
The short answer
- You inherit the substrate and get blamed for its failures.
- Customers compare a square metre rate and nothing else.
- Setting out is the craft, and it is the thing you can actually show.
- Refusing to tile onto unsuitable backgrounds costs you jobs and saves your reputation.
- Bathroom fitters and kitchen fitters are steadier work than homeowners.
On this page
Why tiling quotes get turned down
Because customers compare a rate per square metre, and rates look comparable when the jobs are not.
One tiler has allowed for priming, levelling and a tile backer board in the shower. Another has not. Both quote per square metre. The customer picks the lower one, and eighteen months later the tiles come off the wall.
The other trade-specific problem: you inherit what you are given. Someone else built the wall, laid the floor, or did the tanking. When it fails, the tiling is what is visible and you carry the blame.
What the customer is actually weighing
Rate, almost entirely, because nothing else is legible to them.
Where the work comes from
Bathroom and kitchen fitters, who need a tiler regularly. The most reliable pipeline in the trade.
Builders and developers, on volume.
Tile retailers without fitting teams.
Direct domestic, where margins are better but the work is intermittent.
What separates you from the quote below yours
Specify the substrate work in the quote. Priming, levelling, backer board. It makes the difference between your price and a lower one visible.
Ask about tanking, in writing. If a bathroom fitter has not tanked a wet area, say so before you tile. Recording it protects you when it leaks.
Show the setting out before you fix. Mark it up and walk the customer through where the cuts land. It takes ten minutes, it demonstrates craft, and it prevents the argument about a sliver against the most visible wall.
Agree wastage and breakage up front. Especially on discontinued or imported tiles, where a shortfall stops the job.
Making the money conversation easy
Where the customer supplies the tiles, no deposit is needed. Where you supply, a payment against the actual order. Simple, explicable, and it distinguishes you from trades asking for a percentage with no stated reason.
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Common questions
- Will this work for my kind of job?
- It suits planned work with clear stages best. Very short reactive jobs move too fast for staged payments.
- Does the customer have to agree?
- Yes. They approve each stage before it is released, which is the part that reassures them.
- Do I still take a deposit?
- Yes, as a capped kick-off with a stated reason for what it covers.
- How does it help me win work?
- It removes the objection you are currently losing quotes to without ever being told.