Area Converter (m² / ft² / acres)

Area conversions are essential for property, land and gardening in the UK. Estate agents quote square feet alongside square metres, farmers work in acres and hectares, and planners think in hectares. This converter covers all the common units, including square metres, square feet, square yards, acres and hectares, so you can move between the unit a document happens to use and the unit you actually picture in your head.

The key equivalents are worth learning once. One square metre is 10.764 square feet. One acre is 4,047 square metres or 0.4047 hectares, and also 4,840 square yards. One hectare is 10,000 square metres or 2.471 acres, while a square mile is 640 acres or 2.59 km². A football pitch at 105×68m is about 0.71 hectares, or 1.76 acres, which makes a handy mental yardstick. Following a figure through, 1,200 sq ft becomes 111.48 sq m, 0.0275 acres or 0.01115 hectares.

Residential listings quote Gross Internal Area under RICS guidance, measured to the internal face of the perimeter walls, counting hallways but excluding garages, sheds and eaves below 1.5m. Commercial space is usually given as Net Internal Area, which also strips out columns and stairs. Typical sizes climb a familiar ladder, from a 1-bed flat at 40-50 m², or 430-540 sq ft, to a 2-bed flat at 55-70 m², a 3-bed semi at 80-100 m² and a 4-bed detached at 120-160 m². The average new build is 76 m², the smallest in Europe, against 113 m² in France and 109 m² in Germany. Plots are tight too, averaging around 200 m², or 0.05 acres, and 75-150 m² on new estates.

Price per square metre is the fairest way to compare homes of different sizes. Across the UK in 2026 the mid-market runs at £2,800-£3,500/m², while London sits at £6,500-£15,000/m², Manchester at £2,000-£3,500/m² and Cardiff at £1,800-£2,800/m². A 60 m² two-bedroom flat in central London at £10,000/m² comes to £600,000, where the same floor area in Manchester might be £150,000-£200,000. Agents often quote per square foot instead, which puts London at £700-£1,500, Manchester at £200-£400 and rural stock at £150-£250. Leasehold ground rent and service charges are frequently set per square foot as well.

Outdoors the numbers shrink but the arithmetic holds. A full UK allotment is 250 m², ten rods in the old measure, and the half plot now common is 125 m², or five rods. The average UK garden came out at 188 m² in Ordnance Survey figures for 2019, while the average farm field runs to 5-10 hectares. Materials are sold by coverage, so a 600×600mm paving slab covers 0.36 m², a decking board 145mm wide and 3.6m long covers 0.52 m², a standard greenhouse at 1.95 × 2.55m gives roughly 5 m², and a raised bed of 1m × 4m gives 4 m². Lawn seed goes down at 35-50 g/m² and fertiliser at 30-50 g/m².

Surface area is a different sum from floor area, and paint and tiles are bought against it. For walls, multiply the room perimeter by the ceiling height, then deduct the openings. A room of 4m × 3m × 2.4m has a perimeter of 14m, so 14m × 2.4m is 33.6 m² gross, less 1.8 m² for the door and 1.5 m² for the window, leaving 30.3 m² to paint, and a litre of paint covers about 12 m² per coat. Roofs need the slope rather than the plan. On a gable roof of 8m × 5m at a 30° pitch, the rafter length is 5/cos(30°), or 5.77m, so the area is 8 × 5.77 × 2, giving 92 m² of tiles.

Council Tax bands are set on 1991 values rather than on floor area, though the two correlate loosely. Band A tends to cover homes under 50 m², Band D falls around 75-110 m², and Band H starts near 200 m², with wide regional variation behind those figures. Building an extension does not trigger a rebanding while you own the property, but it can push the next buyer into a higher band. Wales rebanded in 2003 and has another revaluation planned for 2028, whereas English bands have not moved since 1991.