Guide
Mini piling cost UK: 2026 prices per metre for small-rig work
Updated
Mini piling is the domestic workhorse: rigs small enough to get behind a terraced house, piles big enough to carry an extension. Here is how the pricing works and a worked example you can sanity-check quotes against.
How mini piling is priced
- The metered rate: £250–£450 per metre of depth, per pile (typical 2026 quotes). Ten piles at 5 m is 50 pile-metres; that number times the rate is the core of the bill.
- Mobilisation: £1,500–£3,000 to get the rig, crew and kit to site, payable once per visit. This is why tiny jobs feel expensive per pile, the fixed cost spreads across fewer metres.
- What moves the rate: ground (obstructions and hard digging slow the rig), access (stripping a rig down to fit through a house costs time), pile spec (diameter, reinforcement, load), and region, London and the South East sit at the top.
- What's usually extra: pile design and soil investigation, spoil removal on bored piles, and the ground beams or ring beam that spread the building's load across the pile heads. Ask every quote to state what's included.
A worked example
| Item | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| 24 pile-metres (6 piles x 4 m) at £250–£450 | £6,000 | £10,800 |
| Mobilisation | £1,500 | £3,000 |
| Piling package total | £7,500 | £13,800 |
That sits inside the £5,000–£15,000 that a typical domestic extension piling job costs all-in (typical 2026 quotes). Fewer or shallower piles pull it toward the bottom; deep clay, tight access or more piles push it up. Ground beams and the engineer's design come on top unless your quote says otherwise.
Driven, bored or sectional auger?
- Driven mini piles
- Steel or precast sections hammered in. Fast, no spoil to cart away, and the ground itself proves the capacity as driving resistance rises. Vibration makes them less welcome tight against fragile structures.
- Bored / augered mini piles
- A hole augered out and filled with reinforced concrete. Low vibration, good next to existing buildings, but produces spoil and needs concrete logistics. CFA (continuous flight auger) is the higher-output version on larger jobs.
- Sectional auger rigs
- The tight-access specialists: rigs that break down to pass through a doorway or narrow side passage and reassemble in a rear garden. Slower, so tight-access jobs price higher per metre, but they make piling possible where nothing else fits.
The contractor picks the technique for your ground, access and neighbouring structures; what you should compare across quotes is the all-in price for the specified piles, mobilisation included, and what happens to the price if piles need to go deeper than the design depth, ask for the extra-over rate per metre before you sign.