Roof Moss Removal Cost UK: What A Roof Clean Should Cost In 2026

For a typical semi-detached house in the UK, MyJobQuote publishes £400 to £550 to pressure wash the roof and £450 to £650 to soft wash it, and gives an average cost of roof cleaning using pressure washing of around £575, based on an average-sized semi-detached house with good ease of access. Checkatrade is higher on moss removal specifically, publishing £637.50 to £862.50 to remove moss from the roof of an average-sized semi-detached home. Bungalows sit at the bottom of every range because scaffolding is often not needed, and detached houses sit at the top.

Those are national market ranges as the price authorities publish them, not our prices, and a number on a guide page is not a quote. Below is what each source says, where they contradict each other, and what is usually excluded from the figure.

How much does it cost to remove moss from a roof?

MyJobQuote is the most detailed of the four sources on property type, publishing a labour figure and a job duration for each house type, so you can find your own house on the list rather than measuring your roof.

• Bungalow: £350 to £500, over 3 to 5 hours. MyJobQuote notes bungalows are single storey so scaffolding is often not required.
• Terraced house: £400 to £550, over 3 to 4 hours.
• Semi-detached house: £400 to £550, over 4 to 5 hours.
• Detached house: £550 to £900, over 6 to 7 hours. MyJobQuote says costs rise towards £900 on larger multi-storey homes because scaffolding will usually be required.
• Conservatory roof: £70 to £120, a separate job from the main roof.

Checkatrade comes at the same question from the moss angle rather than the house type. Its guide states that for an average-sized, semi-detached home it can cost anywhere between £637.50 and £862.50 to remove moss from a roof, depending on the cleaning method used. That sits well above MyJobQuote's £400 to £550 for the same house type, and the gap is worth understanding rather than splitting.

MyBuilder also prices the work by the hour, putting the labour rate for a professional roof cleaner at £20 to £40 per hour. Read against MyJobQuote's 4 to 5 hours for a semi, that is a useful cross-check: if both the hours and the hourly rate look plausible, the total usually does too.

Which? is worth naming for what it does not publish. Its roofers cost guide, built from a survey of 11 Which? Trusted Traders gathered in November 2025, carries prices for replacing tiles and whole roofs, but no roof cleaning, moss removal or soft washing price at all. If you see a roof cleaning figure attributed to Which?, it did not come from that guide.

What is roof cleaning per square metre in the UK?

The other way these guides price a roof is per square metre, which is how most quotes are actually built because it scales with the real size of the roof rather than the label on the house. Here the sources do not agree.

• Pressure washing: Checkatrade publishes £5 to £12 per square metre, averaging £8.50, and it is the cheapest method on their list. MyJobQuote publishes £8 to £15 per square metre.
• Soft washing: Checkatrade publishes £12 to £16 per square metre, averaging £14, and it is the dearest method on their list. MyJobQuote publishes £10 to £20 per square metre. MyBuilder publishes around £15 to £20 per square metre.
• Steam cleaning: Checkatrade publishes £9 to £13 per square metre, averaging £11. MyJobQuote publishes £11 to £25 per square metre.
• Moss removal and biocide treatment: Checkatrade publishes £8 to £15 per square metre for hand-removal with a biocide treatment, averaging £11.50. MyJobQuote publishes £8 to £15 per square metre for moss removal and biocide.
• Overall: Checkatrade puts roof cleaning across all methods at £8.50 to £14 per square metre, depending on the cleaning method, the size and pitch of the roof, and how easy it is to access safely.

The disagreement points one way. Checkatrade caps roof cleaning at £14 per square metre, while MyJobQuote runs to £25 and MyBuilder to £20 at the top. Checkatrade is quoting a typical rate and the other two the full spread including difficult jobs, so a steep, awkward roof can sit above Checkatrade's ceiling without anybody overcharging. The sources also flip on method: Checkatrade makes soft washing the dearest and steam the cheapest, MyJobQuote the reverse. So do not choose a method on price. Choose it on what your roof can take, and our guide on soft washing versus pressure washing a roof explains why high pressure is wrong on most UK tiles.

What actually moves the price on your roof

Every driver below is named by one of the price authorities themselves. If your quote sits well above or below the ranges above, the reason is almost always on this list.

• Roof size in square metres: named by Checkatrade, MyJobQuote and MyBuilder. The single biggest factor, and why house type is only a rough proxy.
• Safe access: named by Checkatrade, MyJobQuote and Which?. A roof hemmed in by a conservatory or a narrow side return costs more than one you can walk up to.
• Number of storeys: named by MyJobQuote. Height is the main reason a detached house carries a scaffolding cost a bungalow does not.
• Roof pitch: named by Checkatrade. A steep roof is slower to work on than a shallow one of the same area.
• How much moss, algae and lichen there is, and the condition of the tiles: named by MyJobQuote and MyBuilder. A roof left for decades is a different job from one cleaned a few years ago.
• Cleaning method: named by Checkatrade, MyJobQuote and MyBuilder, with the per square metre rates set out above.
• Listed building status: named by Checkatrade.
• Region: MyJobQuote states London and the South East cost more than the North, Wales and Scotland, and Which? says prices are likely to be at the upper end of the scale there. Neither publishes a numeric uplift, so nobody should be quoting you a percentage.

That last point matters here, because we cover Surrey, Sussex and Kent, including Horley, Redhill and Crawley, and that is the part of England both sources put at the top of the range. No national guide publishes a Surrey, Sussex or Kent figure, and we will not invent one. Take it as a reason to weight the upper half of the published ranges, and nothing more.

What is not included in a roof cleaning quote?

This is where a cheap-looking quote turns into an expensive job, and Checkatrade is explicit about it. Its guide states that the costs in the guide do not include scaffolding or platform hire if they are needed for your roof clean. MyJobQuote does publish a figure for it, and it is large: it puts scaffolding hire at £650 to £950, which on a semi-detached house can be more than the cleaning itself. That is the single most important question before you accept any roof cleaning quote: is access included, and who pays if scaffolding or a platform is needed.

That cost exists for safety, not padding. The Health and Safety Executive says the main causes of death and injury in roof work are falling from roof edges or openings, through fragile roofs and through fragile rooflights, and that all roofs should be treated as fragile until a competent person has confirmed they are not. A quote that is cheap because nobody priced safe access is not a saving.

Waste is the second gap: Checkatrade says not every quote includes disposing of it, and a roof carrying heavy moss produces a surprising amount of debris. Gutters are the third. Moss stripped off a roof lands in them, but Checkatrade says gutter clearing may be included and not always. Charged separately, MyJobQuote puts gutter cleaning at around £200 alongside a roof clean, and Which? publishes £75 to £350 to clean the gutters front and back. Our gutter clearing page explains what we do up there, and we do not carry out gutter repairs, replacement or re-sealing.

Two further MyJobQuote add-ons are worth knowing so you can tell them apart from the clean: biocide treatment at £25 to £50 if added separately, roof tile replacement at around £215 on average, and roof coating or sealing at £1,500 to £2,500. Roof coating is a different product from a clean, and a quote that jumps into four figures may be for that. On VAT, only Which? states a position: its figures include labour and materials but exclude VAT. Checkatrade, MyJobQuote and MyBuilder publish no VAT statement, so ask before you compare.

Is a roof clean actually worth paying for?

This is a roof cleaning business telling you that a roof clean is not always the right purchase. The case for paying is straightforward: heavy moss breaks off and blocks gutters and valleys, and shows up as overflowing gutters rather than as a roof problem at all. If your gutters fill with moss every year, the roof is the cause, and cleaning it is cheaper than repeatedly clearing the symptom. What moss does to the tiles is a separate question, answered in our guide on whether moss damages a roof.

The case against is timing. MyJobQuote says a professionally cleaned roof typically stays clean for 2 to 4 years, depending on your location and surroundings, so if you change nothing about the shade and damp that grew the moss, you are buying a result with a shelf life. And if the roof is close to needing tiles replaced, cleaning first can be money spent twice, so a roofer should look at it before a cleaner does. We do not carry out roofing work, ridge re-bedding or gutter repairs, so we have nothing to gain from saying that.

How to compare roof cleaning quotes properly

The ranges are wide and the exclusions are where the money hides, so comparing two quotes on the headline number alone is close to meaningless. These questions make them comparable.

• Is access included: ask whether scaffolding or a platform is needed and who pays. On MyJobQuote's figures this question can be worth more than the rest combined.
• Which method, and why: soft wash, steam, pressure wash or biocide. Rates differ by method in every source that publishes them, so a cheaper quote may simply be a different job.
• Is the price by the job or by the hour: MyBuilder prices by the hour and MyJobQuote by the job, and a quote is easier to sanity-check once you know which you are looking at.
• Is waste removal included: Checkatrade says not every quote covers disposal.
• Are the gutters included afterwards: Checkatrade says this may be included but not always.
• Is the number inclusive or exclusive of VAT: only Which? states a position, and it excludes VAT.
• What insurance is held: it is a fair question to ask any business working on your roof. We hold £1m public liability insurance with Admiral Business.
• How long the result should last: treat any promise of permanence with suspicion, given what MyJobQuote publishes about regrowth.

For a number on your own roof rather than a national range, someone has to look at the size, the pitch, the access and the state of the growth. You can see how we work on our roof cleaning and soft washing pages, or ask for a free, no-obligation quote and we will give you an honest view, including when the answer is to leave it.