June 23, 2026

An island adds roughly £6,000 to £12,000 to a kitchen, and that is before the services. Once you add power, plumbing and extraction the true figure is often closer to £10,000 to £18,000. It is the single most requested feature we build and the one we most often talk people out of.

What the cabinetry costs

An island is simply more cabinetry, usually four to six additional units, plus a larger single piece of worktop with more exposed edges. Exposed edges matter because every finished edge is labour, and an island has four of them where a run against a wall has one.

A modest island with storage on one side and a seated overhang on the other starts around £6,000. A larger one with a sink, a hob, integrated bins and a waterfall end is comfortably £12,000 and upwards.

What people forget to budget

• Power. Sockets in an island mean a spur run under the floor. Straightforward in a new screed, disruptive in an existing solid floor.
• Plumbing. A sink or dishwasher in an island needs supply and waste, and waste needs a fall. This is the expensive one, and in a ground floor with a solid slab it can mean breaking up concrete.
• Extraction. A hob in an island needs either a ceiling extractor, a downdraft unit, or a run of ducting. Downdraft units are the neat answer and they are not cheap.
• Worktop overhang. A seated overhang beyond about 300mm needs supporting, usually with concealed steel brackets.

When an island is the wrong answer

An island needs roughly 1,000mm of clear floor on every side you walk down, and closer to 1,200mm where two people pass or a dishwasher door opens. In practice that means the room needs about 3.6m of clear width before an island stops making it worse.

Below that you get an obstacle. We have measured plenty of rooms where the island the client had in mind would have left 700mm of circulation, which is narrower than most hallways and considerably more annoying.

What to do instead

A peninsula gives you most of the benefit for a fraction of the cost. It is attached at one end, so it needs clear floor on two sides rather than four, and services can run through the connected wall rather than under the floor.

A well-planned table at the end of a run does the social job an island is usually bought for, costs nothing structurally, and can be moved.

The honest position

If your room takes an island, have one. It is genuinely the best arrangement for cooking with other people in the room. If your room does not, no amount of clever design makes it fit, and the money is better spent on the rest of the kitchen.