Can you build a house for 300k in the UK?

Yes, you can build a house for £300k in the UK, but realistically not in London, and only if the land is already yours. Outside the South East, with a plot paid for separately, £300k builds a decent three bed if you hold your nerve: simple rectangular design, standard foundations, mid-range finishes, no changes once work starts. The people who manage it are disciplined about design early and boring about spec later. The people who fail fall in love with glazing.

In London the same money will not get you far once the plot is bought. But it does something else entirely on a house that already exists, and that is the work we actually price. £300k covers a whole-house renovation of a Victorian terrace (from £1,200 per square metre), a kitchen extension (from £2,500 per square metre, with a typical 20 square metre single-storey from £55,000) and a dormer loft conversion from £50,000, and on most terraces you would still have money left over. That is an extra bedroom, a new kitchen, new services throughout and a house that works for the next thirty years.

We renovate and extend across South East and South West London and see this trade-off constantly. For £300k you can build a modest new house a long way from your job, or turn a tired London house into exactly what you want. Same budget, very different lives.