How much does a new driveway cost?

By Taylor Teasdale, Owner · 28 October 2026

The first thing almost everyone wants to know is what a new driveway is going to cost, and the honest answer is that it depends far more on what is underneath than on what goes on top. Two driveways the same size, the same material and the same street can be thousands apart because one needed digging out and draining and the other did not.

Here is what the numbers actually look like, and more usefully, what moves them.

Rough costs per square metre

As a starting point for a domestic driveway, laid properly on a full-depth base, these are the ranges you will see across most of the UK in 2026:

• Block paving — roughly £90 to £140 per square metre
• Resin-bound — roughly £95 to £150 per square metre
• Tarmac — roughly £60 to £100 per square metre
• Natural stone setts — £130 upwards, depending entirely on the stone

A typical two-car driveway is somewhere between 40 and 60 square metres. So most domestic block paving jobs land between £4,000 and £8,000, and most resin jobs are in a similar bracket. Anything dramatically below that range is worth asking hard questions about.

What actually moves the price

The excavation. A driveway needs digging out to depth — usually 200mm or more for anything a car sits on. That spoil has to be carted away and tipped, and tip charges are a real line on the bill. A driveway that has already been dug out, or that only needs a surface change, is a materially cheaper job.

What the ground is doing. Clay that holds water, a former garden with soft ground, or an old driveway laid straight onto soil all need more sub-base, not less. This is the part you cannot see on a finished job and the part that decides whether it is still flat in five years.

Drainage. Water has to go somewhere. On a flat plot that is usually straightforward; on a plot that falls towards the house it is the most important thing in the whole job. Channel drains, soakaways and linear drainage all add cost and all cost less than fixing water in a garage.

Access. If a wagon can get to the front of the house, materials come in on one delivery. If it cannot, everything is barrowed or shuttled, and that is labour. A narrow lane or a tight corner genuinely changes the price.

Edgings and extras. Kerbs, borders, a contrasting band, steps, or a dropped kerb application all sit on top of the square-metre rate.

Why the cheapest quote is usually the most expensive

This is the part worth being blunt about. Almost every failed driveway we get called to look at failed at the base. The blocks are fine. The resin is fine. What happened is that the sub-base was too shallow, or it was tipped in and rolled in one go rather than built up and compacted in layers, or the whole thing was laid over ground that was still moving.

You cannot see any of that on the day it is finished. Both driveways look identical. The difference shows up in the second winter, when one of them starts tramlining where the wheels sit, and by then the money is gone.

So when you compare quotes, compare the parts you cannot see. Ask what depth they are excavating to. Ask what the sub-base is and whether it goes in in layers. Ask what happens to the water. A contractor who is confident in their build will answer all three without hesitating.

Getting a price you can rely on

A written quote should be itemised, so you can see the dig, the sub-base, the surface, the edgings and the disposal as separate lines. That is not just transparency — it is how you compare two quotes properly, because it shows you exactly where one is cheaper than the other.

We dig a test hole at the site visit before we price anything, so the number we give you is based on what is actually under your driveway rather than what we hope is under it. It is free, it takes twenty minutes, and it is the difference between a fixed price and an estimate that moves.