Find Painters & Decorators in the UK
Search by UK town or postcode
If you'd prefer businesses to reach out to you,
post an enquiry or find your location by the region below.
Need help finding a painter or decorator near you?
Whether it’s a full redecorating project or just touching up scuffs and marks, Yell helps you hire trusted painters and decorators near you in just a few steps.
Here’s how it works:
1. Enter your location to browse painter and decorator profiles or post an enquiry
2. Compare reviews and credentials to find businesses that suit your needs
3. Prefer to speak directly? Call or message businesses straight from their profile
Types of painting and decorating services near you
1. Interior decorating
If you want to enhance your home’s interior appeal, painters and decorators can help. Painters prepare and apply coatings to walls, ceilings, doors, and trims. Decorators take things further, adding finishes, furnishings and decorative elements to create an attractive space that suits your style. Many professionals offer both services, especially in residential settings.
2. Exterior decorating
Unhappy with your home’s kerb appeal? Painters and decorators can transform its exterior for a more polished look. From walls and trims to cladding or render, painters apply weather-resistant coatings that significantly enhance your home’s appearance. While decorators usually focus on interiors, some also assist with exterior styling.
3. Renovation projects
If you’re planning a larger renovation project, both painters and decorators will play key roles—possibly alongside an interior designer. Painters refresh the look of your walls and ceilings, while decorators introduce stylistic elements to pull the space together. Many professionals can advise on colour choices and materials to help you achieve your desired aesthetic.
What are the most common painter and decorator services?
Painters and decorators help keep your property looking its best, inside and out. Below are some of the most common jobs they’re called out to handle.
Interior painting
Professional painters and decorators can improve your property’s indoor spaces with interior painting services.
They apply paint to walls, ceilings, doors, window frames, and a variety of other fittings and surfaces.
In general, most services include both surface preparation – such as cleaning and priming – and painting itself.
Exterior painting
Focusing on outdoor surfaces, like walls, cladding, and doors, exterior painting services can transform your property’s appearance.
Professionals use weather-resistant paints and coatings to help protect your home from the elements.
The result is a finish that not only boosts kerb appeal but also helps preserve your home’s exterior over time.
Custom murals and artwork
In some cases, painters with more refined artistic skills offer custom mural and artwork services.
These allow you to personalise your home with unique, visually striking designs and a one-of-a-kind atmosphere.
As a more time-consuming and specialist service, it usually comes at a higher cost.
Wallpapering
If you want to add texture, pattern, or more personality to a room, wallpaper might be the right choice.
Decorators routinely handle wallpapering, including wall preparation and the precise application of the paper itself.
They can also remove old wallpaper if you’re ready for a change—a task many homeowners prefer to leave to the professionals.
Decorative finishes
Decorators can enhance your property with decorative finishes, both inside and out.
External mouldings and trims are popular, while internally, features like stencilling and wood grain effects can add character and charm.
These additions can transform a plain, uninspiring space into something vibrant and full of style.
Coving installation
If you’re looking to add a touch of style to a room—or to hide imperfections—coving or cornices can help.
Both add a neat, finished look and make it easier to clean where the walls meet the ceiling.
For a visually pleasing result, it’s best to hire a decorator with a steady hand and an eye for detail.
How to find the best local painters and decorators
Finding the right painter and decorator can be tricky. Here are four key factors to keep in mind to make sure you’re choosing a skilled and reliable professional:
Knowledge and experience
The best local painters and decorators will have direct experience with work like yours. A short discussion of similar work should quickly reveal whether their approach fits your requirements. This is often the difference between a smooth job and costly rework.
Review portfolios
Review recent portfolios before shortlisting local painters and decorators. Look for projects similar in scale and finish to your own. Consistent quality across multiple projects is usually a strong sign of reliable work.
Reputation or reviews
Reviews are one of the quickest ways to vet local painters and decorators. Look for comments on clear communication and sticking to agreed timescales. Prioritise detailed feedback over star scores alone, especially when similar jobs are described.
Stage payments
Agree payment terms clearly before booking local painters and decorators. Your quote should include written confirmation of the scope of work before work starts, plus VAT and the timing of each invoice. Written terms reduce misunderstandings and make costs easier to control.
What questions should I ask before hiring painters and decorators?
How will you prepare and protect my property? Take time to ask for specific details on how they will prepare the surfaces and areas being painted or decorated, and how they will protect and clean your property before and after the work. Detailed explanations show they know what they’re doing and can indicate higher-quality work.
Do you offer any guarantees or warranties? You need to know that any work carried out by painters and decorators will be of high quality and long-lasting. Guarantees and warranties provide peace of mind and ensure that if any problems arise during or after the project, they will be addressed properly.
What are your payment terms? Establishing clear payment terms is important. You should find out when payments are due, whether a deposit is required, if any additional charges apply, and most importantly, whether you are comfortable with them.
What’s your availability and how long will the work take? You need to know when they are available to work on your property and how long the job will take once it begins. If they cannot provide clear timelines, consider choosing another provider.
How do you handle cancellations and rescheduling? Many painters and decorators charge a cancellation fee if you cancel at short notice. It’s best to ask about their cancellation policy and get clear details on what happens if you need to cancel.
Top frequently asked questions about painters and decorators
Usually, painter and decorator quotes only include the cost of labour, but that isn’t always the case. If you’d prefer to source materials through your painter or decorator, you can ask them to include that in any quotes you receive.
In some cases, painters and decorators can leverage their relationships with local decorating suppliers to get materials for cheaper trade prices. In cases like these, you could actually save money by asking your painters and decorators to source supplies themselves.
When comparing quotes between painting and decorating services, make sure you know everything that’s included from each business. If you’re not comparing the quotes fairly, you could miss out on the best deal and cost yourself some cash.
For painting and decorating projects, you have to think about the cost of labour and materials, but that’s not all. For some work, you’ll need to consider these other elements:
Furniture removal and protection
Plastering
Patching holes
Wallpaper removal
Disposal of old materials
Many painters and decorators will include these tasks as part of their initial quote, but it’s always worth asking what’s included – and how much it might cost for these other services if they’re not included – for clarity.
Yes, ordinarily painters will wash and prepare walls before painting them. This is standard practice for professionals but takes on particular importance when a property’s walls are dirty, dusty, or have accumulated grime.
By washing the walls, painters remove dirt, grease, and stains that would not only undermine the paint’s finish but could affect how the paint adheres to the walls. Needless to say, these contaminants would result in a poor-quality outcome that isn't worth your money.
Yes, you can paint and decorate your home, which is cheaper than hiring a professional. In that case, you’d only have to cover the cost of materials. If that's your preference, check out our guide for how to paint walls.
While some homeowners do choose to paint their own properties, but there are risks.
For starters, even if you do a decent job without any major mistakes, the finish will be lower quality than what you would receive from a professional painter. Most DIYers fail to properly prepare walls and ceilings for painting with the necessary sandpapering and cleaning.
Additionally, there’s a chance that it could go badly wrong, to the extent that a professional is needed to fix your work. If that happens, you will have to pay for the initial supplies, a painter, and possibly additional materials – costing you more than if you’d just hired a painter in the first place.
Make sure you're fully informed before deciding to paint your home. Check out our article on the top painting and decorating myths to learn more.
Yes, painters and decorators will usually help with colour consultation. If you’re struggling to pick a paint colour, or if you need help finding colours that work together well, you can lean on these experts (for more in-depth guidance, consider hiring an interior designer too).
Many painters and decorators offer colour consultation for free as part of wider painting and decorating packages. If you don’t commit to any other services, you will probably have to pay a fee for colour consultation. Always ask painters and decorators if their colour consultation services carry additional costs.
Yes, most painters and decorators are happy to remove wallpaper and handle paint stripping. These processes are usually carried out as part of a larger redecorating project, where either new wallpaper or paint is being added to the space.
You might be able to remove wallpaper by yourself, but it is a laborious process that can cause damage to your walls. As for paint stripping, sanding, heat guns, and chemical paint strippers are all commonly used removal techniques, with each needing proper care and attention.
Again, inexperienced hands could lead to damage. If you decide you want to remove paint from wood or brick, make sure you follow specific instructions and take safety seriously. If you're interested, you can follow our guide on how to remove paint from brickwork.
Whether you want to replace wallpaper or paint, it’s wise to bring in a professional. Depending on the size of your project, you might be able to negotiate on wallpaper and paint removal costs. To get the best price, make sure you're taking quotes from several services.
While some painters and decorators offer plastering services, many do not. Plastering is a distinct trade from painting and decorating and would generally not be offered as standard by these businesses. It requires specialist training and a different set of skills.
Painters and decorators are more likely to handle minor plaster repairs, such as repairing ceiling cracks as part of the surface preparation process, rather than the large-scale application of plaster and plasterboard in a home renovation. For the best results, consider hiring a plasterer instead – and consider pairing that with a painter and decorator who can paint your new plaster.
You should keep additional costs, like hiring a plasterer, in mind when embarking on a new painting and decorating project. It isn't just the cost of paint and decorating supplies you need to worry about, but everything included in a project that leads to a fully finished outcome.
For this reason, some people try to manage tasks like plaster boarding ceilings and walls themselves. Taking on DIY projects is worth exploring, but don't try anything adventurous (or dangerous!) if you're not feeling confident.
Painters and decorators are usually self-employed and pick their working hours. They might prefer to work between Monday and Friday but, upon request, could be available on weekends and during evenings. Painters and decorators can be more or less flexible on a case-by-case basis.
If painters and decorators work outside their regular hours, they might demand a higher price for their services. Make sure you learn about any evening or weekend rates before scheduling a service visit, or you could end up paying more than you'd anticipated.
Yes, painters and decorators are happy to supply the paint, if requested. Just make sure you give them plenty of notice that you’d like them to bring the paint and that you’re clear about which type of paint you’d like. If you're not specific about colours or the finish, you could end up having to pay twice.
Obviously, it’s perfectly fine for you to buy paint yourself, too. If you choose to purchase your paint, make sure you have the right volume for the spaces you want painted. If you’re left short, it could slow down the project and cost you extra in both labour and material charges.
Yes, generally painters and decorators clean up after they’re finished painting. The level of cleanliness they deliver will vary from one service to another, though. It’s good to discuss this with your preferred painting and decorating service before they visit your property.
Services will usually pack up their equipment, take away protective coverings, dispose of waste, clean down surfaces, and restore furniture and fixtures to their original locations. Once that’s done, the space should resemble its previous state.
This is not the same kind of outcome as you'll get with professional cleaning services, though. Decorating a property can be a messy business, so set realistic expectations and take steps to protect your property from the painting and decorating processes.