NipRound Research · prices collected October 2026
Ask ten barbers what a haircut should cost and you'll get ten answers. We wanted real numbers, so we read the public online price lists of 661 barbershops: every Kent barbershop we could find on Booksy and Fresha, plus a sample from 14 UK cities.
Key findings
- The typical standard men's haircut costs £20. That's the median across the 510 shops in our sample that list a standard cut. In Kent (74 shops) the median is also £20, and the middle half of Kent shops charge between £18 and £25.
- London is the clear outlier at £30, around 50% above almost everywhere else. Edinburgh and Glasgow come next at £25. Most English and Welsh cities we sampled sit between £18 and £22.25.
- A skin fade usually costs only a little more than a standard cut: a median of £22 across the sample and in Kent, against £20 for a standard cut. Given that fades usually take longer, many shops may be under-charging for them.
Inside Kent, North Kent (Medway and Swale) had the highest median at £24.50, and Thanet the lowest at £18.
Standard men's haircut by area
| Area | Shops | Median | Middle 50% | Lowest–highest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All sampled shops | 510 | £20 | £18–£27 | £5–£72 |
| Kent (all) | 74 | £20 | £18–£25 | £5–£55 |
| London | 33 | £30 | £21–£34 | £5–£63 |
| Edinburgh | 27 | £25 | £21–£30 | £9–£50 |
| Glasgow | 26 | £25 | £19.25–£31.50 | £10–£47 |
| Newcastle | 44 | £22.25 | £18–£28.50 | £11.75–£35 |
| Brighton | 36 | £21.50 | £19.38–£26.25 | £13–£39 |
| Liverpool | 27 | £21 | £17.50–£30 | £6–£72 |
| Bristol | 40 | £20 | £16–£25 | £10–£43 |
| Cardiff | 32 | £20 | £15–£23.55 | £8–£35 |
| Leeds | 17 | £20 | £16–£24 | £11–£65 |
| Manchester | 33 | £20 | £19–£30 | £10–£38 |
| Nottingham | 30 | £20 | £17.13–£26.75 | £5–£45 |
| Sheffield | 31 | £20 | £17.50–£23 | £12–£40 |
| Birmingham | 31 | £18.50 | £15–£20 | £12–£40 |
| Southampton | 29 | £18 | £17–£22.50 | £10–£31 |
The very low and very high ends usually reflect unusual services that are still named as a "haircut", such as concession prices or premium experiences. That's why we focus on the median and the middle 50%.
Kent close-up
| Kent area | Shops | Median | Middle 50% |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Kent (Medway & Swale) | 20 | £24.50 | £20–£30 |
| West Kent (Sevenoaks, Tonbridge & Malling, Tunbridge Wells, Dartford, Gravesham) | 12 | £23 | £20–£25.50 |
| East Kent (Canterbury, Thanet, Dover, Folkestone & Hythe) | 22 | £20 | £18–£22.50 |
| Mid Kent (Maidstone & Ashford) | 20 | £19.50 | £16.38–£25 |
Districts with at least five shops:
| District | Shops | Median |
|---|---|---|
| Medway | 16 | £25 |
| Canterbury | 5 | £23 |
| Sevenoaks | 5 | £23 |
| Ashford | 10 | £19.50 |
| Maidstone | 10 | £19 |
| Thanet | 13 | £18 |
Other Kent districts had fewer than five shops with a published standard-cut price, so we haven't reported them on their own.
Skin fade prices
| Area | Shops | Median |
|---|---|---|
| All sampled shops | 305 | £22 |
| Kent (all) | 47 | £22 |
| London | 21 | £32 |
| Brighton | 19 | £25 |
| West Kent | 6 | £25.50 |
The full table is in the data download.
Do prices follow rents?
Shop rents and business rates are a big part of a barber's costs. As an official proxy for what high-street space costs, we used the Valuation Office Agency's retail rateable value per square metre for each local authority, as at 31 March 2025 (VOA, Non-domestic rating: business floorspace, 2025). This covers England and Wales only.
| Area | Retail rateable value per m² (2025) | Median haircut |
|---|---|---|
| London (region) | £270 | £30 |
| Brighton and Hove | £190 | £21.50 |
| Sevenoaks | £174 | £23 |
| Maidstone | £148 | £19 |
| Kent (county) | £145 | £20 |
| England average | £147 | — |
| Medway | £121 | £25 |
| Thanet | £109 | £18 |
London stands out on both rents and prices. Elsewhere the link is weak. Medway, for example, has below-average retail values but some of the highest prices in Kent. Across the 18 areas where we had both figures, the rank correlation was low (Spearman ≈ 0.27, falling to ≈ 0.13 without London). Local competition, the clients a shop serves and the experience it offers seem to matter at least as much as rent.
For a single small shop in England, business rates may be lower than these values suggest. GOV.UK says properties with a rateable value of £12,000 or less pay no business rates if they're the business's only property. From April 2026, smaller retail, hospitality and leisure properties use a multiplier of 38.2p (GOV.UK small business rate relief; GOV.UK estimate your business rates).
What this means for barbers
- £20 is the reference point most clients outside London will have in mind for a standard cut.
- Being above the median is normal for a good shop. A quarter of shops charge £25 to £27 or more.
- Look at your fade pricing. If a fade takes noticeably longer than a standard cut, a £2 difference may not cover the time.
- Don't price from rent alone. Two towns with similar rents can support very different prices.
See our practical guide: How to price your cuts.
Methodology
Sources. These are public business pages on Booksy (booksy.com/en-gb) and Fresha (fresha.com), read in October 2026 from the structured price data on each page. No login was used, and requests were spaced out.
Which shops.
- Kent: every barbershop listed in Booksy's public UK sitemap under a Kent district or town, every bookable Fresha barbershop on Fresha's public "barbershops in [town]" pages for Kent towns, and Kent barbershops from our earlier research that linked to a Booksy or Fresha page.
- UK cities: a random sample of up to 25 barbershops per platform per city from the same sources.
- Likely duplicates (the same shop on both platforms) were removed.
"Standard men's haircut". For each shop we took the lowest-priced adult service named as a haircut or men's or gents' cut. We excluded:
- kids', student and senior prices
- fades, tapers and skin cuts
- clipper-only and buzz cuts
- beard, shave and wash add-ons
- packages, designs and out-of-hours prices
Prices below £5 or above £100 were treated as errors. Skin fade was the lowest-priced service named "skin" or "skin fade", with the same exclusions.
Results.
- 661 shops had a readable price list.
- 510 had a standard cut and 305 had a skin fade.
- Kent had 88 shops, 74 of them with a standard cut.
Reporting rules. We report medians, the middle 50% (25th–75th percentiles) and the lowest–highest range, and only for groups of five or more shops. No individual shop is named or identifiable.
Limitations.
- Shops that list prices on Booksy or Fresha may not be typical. Walk-in-only shops without online price lists aren't covered.
- City samples are limited to 25 per platform and are based on each platform's own area labels, which may differ from council boundaries.
- Some services may have been misclassified despite the rules above.
- These are list prices; discounts and tips aren't included.
Rent context. The VOA figures are average retail rateable value per square metre for each local authority (table FS2.2, 2023 rating list, as at 31 March 2025). They are a measure of relative property value, not actual rents. Scottish areas aren't covered.
Data download
haircut_price_summary.csv: aggregated medians and ranges by area (groups of 5+ only), with the VOA figures where available.
About this research
This research was carried out by NipRound, a new UK company building booking websites for barbers. Want your area included next time, or think we've got something wrong? Tell us at nipround.co.uk.