Liam McMahon Belfast & NI cost calculators
  1. Home
  2. Calculators
  3. Driveways & Outside
  4. Patio
Driveways & Outside

What Does a New Patio Cost in Northern Ireland?

A laid patio in Northern Ireland runs from about £60 per square metre for concrete slabs to £180 for natural stone. Tell us the size, the material and what the garden is like now, and we will price it for your postcode, including the sub-base and the awkward bits.

Rates last reviewed 1 August 2026 · how we work these figures out

What paving do you want?

The material is most of the price, and it decides how much maintenance you sign up for.

How big is the patio?

A table and six chairs needs about 12m². A table plus a seating area is nearer 25m².

m
m
Patio area 0 m²

What is the garden like now?

Lifting an old patio and dealing with a slope are the two items that most often surprise people.

Where are you?

Your postcode sets the regional rate. Access matters: every slab and every tonne of stone goes by barrow.

The first part is enough. We only use it to pick a regional rate.

What else does it need?

Steps and drainage are the two most commonly forgotten items.

Count each individual tread, not each flight.

steps
Questions

Patio costs: the questions people actually ask

In 2026, budget roughly £60 to £90 per square metre for concrete slabs, £80 to £120 for Indian sandstone, £110 to £170 for porcelain and £120 to £180 for granite or limestone. Those figures are fully laid, including the sub-base and the mortar bed, and include VAT. A typical 25 square metre sandstone patio in Belfast therefore comes to about £2,000 to £3,000. Northern Ireland runs below the UK average for this work, largely on labour.

For most Northern Ireland gardens, yes. Porcelain does not absorb water, so it does not go green in a wet winter the way sandstone does, it never needs sealing, and the colour does not fade. It costs roughly 40 per cent more laid, partly because it needs a slurry primer on the back of every slab and diamond blades to cut. Sandstone is warmer looking and cheaper, but it will want washing every spring and sealing every few years.

For a patio walked on rather than driven on, 100 millimetres of compacted MOT Type 1 under a full mortar bed is the standard build-up. That is about 0.2 tonnes of stone per square metre. On soft or made-up ground it should go deeper. Skimping here is the single most common cause of a patio that rocks, sinks at one corner or lifts after a hard frost, and it is invisible on the day the job is finished.

Not normally. A patio in a back garden at ground level is permitted development. The rules tighten if you are raising it significantly above ground level, where overlooking becomes a consideration, or if you are laying more than five square metres of impermeable surface in a front garden, which brings the same drainage rule that applies to driveways. Listed buildings and conservation areas are always worth a phone call to the council first.

Levelling is priced separately here because it varies so much. A modest fall that can be absorbed by cutting into the bank and building a low edge might add £900 to £2,000. A genuine slope needing a proper retaining wall, drainage behind it and steps down to the lawn can easily double the cost of the patio itself. If your garden falls more than about 300 millimetres across the patio area, get that priced as its own item before you choose a paving material.