Website redesign cost UK: budgets and timelines

A UK website redesign costs more than a new site of the same size, because you also pay to move what already works: content, URLs and search rankings. On our own planning bands at October 2026 contract rates, a visual refresh is roughly £2,400–£4,900 and a full rebuild with migrated content £5,900–£12,200, before integrations.

How much does a website redesign cost in the UK?

The bands below are our own scoping assumptions, not survey data: they are how we plan this work. The cost column is plain arithmetic at the median UK web developer contract rate of £488 a day in the six months to 14 October 2026 (IT Jobs Watch), so you can check any quote against it.

Redesign type	What changes	Planning band (days)	Build cost at £488/day	Typical timeline
Visual refresh	New design on the same platform; URLs and most content kept	5–10	£2,440–£4,880	2–4 weeks
Rebuild, existing content	New platform and design; content migrated; URLs mapped and redirected	12–25	£5,856–£12,200	4–8 weeks
Rebuild, new structure	New site structure, rewritten copy, new URLs, full redirect map	20–40	£9,760–£19,520	6–12 weeks
Redesign with functionality	Any of the above plus bookings, payments or CRM integration	35–60	£17,080–£29,280	10–16 weeks

Two things to read from the table. First, the jump from a refresh to a rebuild is mostly migration, not design: moving pages, rewriting links and proving nothing broke. Second, the last row is where a "website" starts turning into an application. If that sounds like your project, read whether you need a website or a web app before you collect quotes, because the two are scoped and priced differently.

The day-rate sample is thin: 41 advertised contract vacancies, of which 15 quoted a rate. London's median was £600 a day against £450 for the UK excluding London, and the UK median was up 16.77% on the same period in 2025. Treat it as a floor for checking quotes, not an agency price. An agency's figure also covers design, project management, testing and a warranty, which a contractor's rate does not. For our own pricing, as of October 2026 our website design and development work starts from £3,500 for a marketing site.

What does a redesign cost that a new build does not?

A brand-new site starts with nothing to lose. A redesign starts with pages that people have bookmarked, other sites have linked to and Google has ranked. Protecting that is where the extra cost sits.

The redirect map. Google's guidance on site moves with URL changes (updated August 2026) is to list every old URL, map each one to its new equivalent, and use permanent server-side redirects such as 301s. It recommends keeping those redirects "for as long as possible", generally at least a year, and advises against redirecting many old pages to one unrelated page, which it may treat as a soft 404. Building and testing that map is a day or two on a small site and considerably more on a large one. It is also the item most often missing from cheap quotes.

A dip, even when it goes right. The same guidance says to "expect temporary fluctuation in site ranking during the move", and that for a medium-sized site it can take a few weeks or more for Google to replace the old URLs with the new ones. Don't launch a redesign the week before your busiest month.

Content migration. Every page you keep has to be moved, checked and often reformatted. Every page you drop needs a decision: redirect it, merge it, or let it go. A content audit before design starts is cheaper than discovering 200 forgotten pages in week six.

Analytics and tracking. Tags, conversion goals and form tracking all need rebuilding on the new site, or your before-and-after comparison is worthless. While you are at it, re-check the cookie banner. The ICO's guidance on storage and access technologies, finalised on 29 April 2026, reflects the changes the Data (Use and Access) Act made to the rules. Consent is still the default, but the guidance now includes exceptions such as "statistical purposes" and "appearance". A redesign is the natural moment to check which of your tags actually need consent.

Accessibility. WCAG 2.2, a W3C Recommendation whose current edition is dated 12 December 2024, added nine success criteria to WCAG 2.1, including minimum target sizes and keeping the focused element visible (W3C). An old site built to an earlier standard will not meet them by accident. Testing against 2.2 belongs in the redesign scope, not a later phase.

What moves the price most?

Five things, roughly in order of impact:

Unique templates, not page count. Forty product pages built from one template cost far less than ten pages that each have a different layout. Ask suppliers to quote by template.
Who writes the content. If you supply final copy on time, the build is predictable. If copy is being written alongside the design, budget more days for the supplier and more time for approvals on your side.
Changing platform. Staying on a sound platform and redesigning the front end is the cheapest route. Moving from one CMS to another adds data export, reformatting and the full redirect exercise.
Integrations. Each connection to a booking system, CRM, payment provider or stock feed is its own small project with its own testing.
Who does the work. A blended day rate far below the £450 regional median usually means junior time or optimistic hours. Either can be fine, but you should know which you are buying.

Should you refresh your current site or rebuild it?

Refresh when the platform is sound and the problem is how the site looks or reads. A refresh keeps the URLs, which removes most of the migration risk and cost.

Rebuild when the platform itself is the problem: pages are slow, editing needs a developer, plugins are out of date, or the code is locked to a supplier you want to leave. In that case, paying twice (once for a refresh now, again for a rebuild later) is the expensive option. We build rebuilds on Next.js, and why we build business websites on Next.js explains what that buys you.

If you cannot tell which you need, that is a scoping question worth a short paid assessment before any design starts.

How long does a website redesign take?

The timelines in the table assume content is ready when the build needs it. In practice, redesigns move through four phases:

Audit and scope. Content inventory, URL list from analytics and the sitemap, decisions on what stays.
Design. Templates first, then the pages that use them.
Build and migrate. Pages built, content moved, redirects written and tested.
Launch and watch. Cutover, new sitemap submitted in Search Console, then a few weeks of monitoring for broken links and lost pages.

Content is the usual bottleneck. The build waits for words and sign-off far more often than words wait for the build.

What should you ask for in a redesign quote?

Five lines that separate proposals faster than the totals do:

Is a full redirect map included, and how will it be tested before launch?
Who migrates the content, and how many pages does the price assume?
Are analytics, conversion tracking and the cookie banner rebuilt and checked?
Which accessibility standard will the site be tested against?
Do we own the code, the domain and the hosting account outright?

The last one matters more on a redesign than anywhere else, because a site you cannot move is how you ended up needing a rebuild. For the wider warning signs in a proposal, see our red flags when choosing a web development agency; for what a site costs to build from scratch and run afterwards, see how much a website costs in the UK. Everything we do on the web side is on our web development page.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a website redesign cost in the UK?

It depends on how much changes. On our own planning bands, priced at the October 2026 median UK web developer contract rate of £488 a day, a visual refresh on the same platform is roughly £2,400 to £4,900, a rebuild that migrates existing content £5,900 to £12,200, and a rebuild with a new structure and rewritten content £9,800 to £19,500.

Will a website redesign hurt our Google rankings?

It can, if pages move without redirects. Google's guidance is to map every old URL to its new equivalent, use permanent server-side redirects and keep them for at least a year. Even done properly, Google says to expect temporary ranking fluctuation while it processes the move.

How long does a website redesign take?

On our planning assumptions, a visual refresh takes two to four weeks, a rebuild with migrated content four to eight, and a rebuild with new structure and copy six to twelve. Content is the usual cause of delay: the build waits for words and approvals far more often than the reverse.

Is it cheaper to refresh our current site than to rebuild it?

Usually, if the platform is sound and the structure still matches how customers look for you. A refresh changes the design and keeps the URLs, which removes most of the migration cost. Rebuild when the platform is the problem: slow, hard to edit, insecure or locked to one supplier.

What is usually missing from a website redesign quote?

The redirect map, content migration, rewriting copy, re-implementing analytics and the cookie banner, and accessibility testing. Each is real work. If a quote does not mention them, ask whether they are included or whether they will arrive later as change requests.

Easy Insight is a UK consultancy for AI, web, apps and data — senior specialists only, no juniors.

Website redesign cost UK: budgets, timelines and what moves the price