UK removal reports
Four reports on what moving costs in the UK, how long it takes and when to book. Compiled from completed moves and published industry surveys, and free to cite.
Giant Van publishes four UK removal data reports, drawn from completed-move records covering 2024 to 2026 and checked against published industry surveys. Between them they answer four questions: what a move costs, what it costs in your city, how long it takes, and when to book it.
Every figure is a planning benchmark, not a quote. All four reports are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, so you are free to reproduce the tables with credit.
- Published reports
- 4
- cost, cities, timing, duration
- Data window
- 2024–2026
- completed moves
- Cities benchmarked
- 25
- in the city report
- Reuse licence
- CC BY 4.0
- attribution required
The reports
Benchmark removal prices by property size and region, the year-on-year movement, and what is pushing prices up.
Updated · 9 min read
Twenty-five UK cities compared on man-and-van rates and local move bands, with a regional summary and the drivers behind each spread.
Updated · 8 min read
Demand and price by day, month and season, and how much timing alone changes the bill on an otherwise identical job.
Updated · 7 min read
How long a move takes by property size, broken into load, transit and unload, plus the access factors that stretch the day.
Updated · 8 min read
Which report answers your question
The four reports overlap on purpose, but each is built around a different question. Start with the one that matches the decision actually in front of you.
| If you are asking | Read | Which measures |
|---|---|---|
| What should a move of my size cost? | UK Moving Cost Report 2026 | Full house-move prices by property size and region |
| Is my city dearer than the national average? | Removal Costs by City | Man-and-van rates and local move bands, city by city |
| Which date will cost me the least? | Best Time to Move | Demand and price by day, month and season |
| How much of the day will this take? | Average Move Times in the UK | Hours by property size, plus access and packing factors |
Two of the reports quote a London premium and the figures do not match. That is not an error: they measure different baskets. The cost report benchmarks full house-move prices by property size, and the city report benchmarks man-and-van and local move bands city by city.
Read each premium against the report that produced it, and take the definition from that report’s own methodology section rather than assuming the two are interchangeable.
How the numbers are produced
Every report starts with completed-move records from the Giant Van platform covering 2024 to 2026. Those records carry the postcodes, property size, access conditions, date and final price of jobs that actually happened, which is a different thing from a quote that was requested and never booked.
We then check the benchmarks against published industry surveys, so no figure rests on our own data alone. Each report lists the sources it was checked against at the foot of the page, with links where the source is publicly available.
Figures are grouped, rounded and published as ranges rather than single points. That is deliberate. A benchmark printed as one exact number invites people to treat it as a price, and it is not one.
Each report also carries Dataset markup naming its time period and geographic coverage, so search engines and answer engines can read the scope of a figure instead of guessing at it.
The wider standards behind this work — how we source, review and correct what we publish — are set out in our methodology and editorial standards.
Why we publish ranges instead of single prices
A removal price is set by more than distance. Two identical three-bed houses on the same street can land hundreds of pounds apart once access, parking and timing are counted, so a single average would be wrong for almost everyone reading it.
The move-times report puts numbers on that. A property with no lift adds roughly 30–50% to the job. Parking more than 20 metres from the door adds 15–30%. Furniture that has to be dismantled on the day adds 30–90 minutes.
Timing moves the price on a separate axis. The timing report finds Tuesday and Wednesday consistently cheapest and Friday dearest, with winter below summer, and 10–25% between an off-peak and a peak slot on the same job.
So read a range as a spread you sit somewhere inside. Ground floor, kerbside parking, mid-week, mid-month and nothing to dismantle puts you near the bottom of it. A third-floor flat with no lift on a summer Friday at month-end puts you near the top.
What these reports cannot tell you
A benchmark is a planning figure. It is not a quote, and nothing on these pages is a price we have offered you. We would rather say that plainly than have someone budget a move against a national average.
City and regional averages smooth over street-level facts. A permit-only road, a lift out of service, a fourth-floor flat with a turn on the stairs: none of that shows up in a city average, and all of it shows up in a real price.
The reports also stop short of specialist handling. Pianos, hot tubs, safes and gym equipment are priced on the item rather than the property size, and the move-times report counts only the extra minutes they add to the day.
Finally, they look backwards. They describe what completed moves cost between 2024 and 2026. They are not a forecast, and we do not publish one.
For a figure that is actually yours, use the quote form. It prices your postcodes, your items, your access and your date, and the price is fixed before you book.
Citing and reusing the data
Every report here is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Journalists, students, councils and other removal firms are free to reproduce or adapt the tables, including commercially, as long as the source is credited and the licence is named.
Credit it in this form: Giant Van, report title, year. Link back to the individual report page you took the figure from rather than to this index, so a reader lands on the methodology behind the number.
If you need a cut we have not published — a city outside the twenty-five, or a breakdown by access type — ask us. We would rather answer than watch a figure get estimated from a table that never covered it.
Update schedule
Cost benchmarks shift with fuel and wages; seasonality barely shifts at all. The reports are therefore not on one clock. The cost benchmarks are refreshed quarterly, and the others are revisited when the underlying pattern moves.
| Report | First published | Last updated | Reading time |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK Moving Cost Report 2026 | 9 min | ||
| Removal Costs by City | 8 min | ||
| Best Time to Move | 7 min | ||
| Average Move Times in the UK | 8 min |
When a report changes, the date on the report itself changes with it. If a figure you cited has since moved, the report page is the version of record — this index only summarises it.
Questions about these reports
Are these reports a quote?
No. They are benchmarks compiled from completed moves and published industry surveys, published to help you plan and to give the press a citable reference. No figure on these pages is a price we have offered you. For a price that is actually yours, use the quote form.
Can I republish figures from these reports?
Yes. Every report is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, so the tables can be reproduced, adapted and used commercially. Credit Giant Van, name the report, and link to the report page the figure came from rather than to this index.
How current is the data?
The underlying completed-move records cover 2024 to 2026. Each report carries its own published and last-updated date, and the cost benchmarks are refreshed quarterly. If a figure you cited has since moved, the report page is the version of record.
Why do your figures differ from other removal comparison sites?
Published removal figures are often drawn from quote requests or survey responses. Ours start from jobs that were actually completed, so the two sets do not have to agree. Where they differ, each report names the industry surveys its benchmarks were checked against.
Which report should I read first?
Read the one that matches the decision in front of you. If you are budgeting, start with the cost report and then check your city. If the date is still open, read the timing report first, because moving mid-week and off-season changes the price more than most people expect.
Do you publish the raw job records behind the reports?
No. The tables in each report are the published dataset, and each report carries Dataset markup describing its coverage. Individual job records stay private because they contain customer addresses and move details.