Cost of job

You pay for what you get!
Though I bought my car for £800 in 2020, now it is apparently worth £2,000! Life has changed exponentially!

I suppose you only get what you pay for? You obviously got a cheap cash in hand job last time, which wasn’t done properly and now needs the-doing.
The price of everything seems to have risen, especially labour as people struggle with living costs.
I’ve just had some exterior work done, at a cost of almost £10K - but 4, sometimes 6 men and scaffolding for 9 days, plus raw materials and VAT.
I hope you get the other quote to compare. Could you get some local recommendations from friends, even if it means going on a waiting list for the work?

Always go by recommendation from friends/neighbours, having inspected the work first.

And as Georgesgran alluded, you may have to wait a goodly time for someone decent, we normally wait a good 6/8 months for any decorating from someone exceptional we use.

I employed a lady to do internal painting and she charged
£150 a day which I thought was very reasonable.
She did a brilliant job and I would certainly employ her again.

If you've found someone who can fit you in straight away they are likely to be rubbish....these days you can await months for decent trades people ....we waited 18 minth to get our drive paved...my mum waited 6 months for her indoor paint work to be done....both jobs were decent prices and very well done

Our decorator also charges £150 a day and is excellent. We wouldn’t use anyone else. He is very busy and we need to book him months in advance.
When our daughter bought her house and the walls were a mess in the lounge after items were removed he fit her job in over a weekend.
There are also check a trade type sites where you can check how much a job should cost.

I would think aa mark up of three times sounds reasonable.

We were in a similar situation to you and we had to have window sills replaced and repaired and, even allowing for extras we must have paid at least three times what the not so good decorator charged.

We are getting a new bathroom in a couple of weeks (hooray!) and it is going to cost more than double what my SIL paid for hers immediately pre-Covid. Obviously it’s a different job but I’d say it’s a similar one, and all bathrooms have pretty much the same things in them. I was quite shocked, but all the quotes came in at a similar price, so clearly things have increased in price over the last few years.

The cost of materials has risen hugely in the last few years.