UK published price observations: the records

2026-10-08 · Eight records, one panel

Most published figures for what aesthetic treatment costs in the United Kingdom carry no date, no sample and no sources. These records are the opposite. One fixed panel of 24 UK provider websites across six cities is read on a stated date for one treatment at a time, every figure is listed against the page it came from, and the pages that could not be read are named rather than quietly dropped. All eight treatments are recorded and 271 figures are on the record.

The records

Each record carries its own register of all 24 pages with what each one published, the method in full, the figures by provider and by city, and a version history, because figures are replaced rather than edited when a new observation is made.

Why one panel

A sample that changes between treatments cannot be compared across them. The same 24 provider websites are read for every record, which means a difference between two of these records is a difference in what providers published and not a difference in who was asked. It also means the panel’s own habits show up plainly: the number of pages publishing a usable figure moves from 21 for HydraFacial down to 6 for laser hair removal and 5 for thread lifts, and that fall is itself a finding about how openly each treatment is priced.

The panel is 24 provider websites in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh, the six cities this directory indexes. A page is included when it is a provider’s own website publishing prices for its own treatments. Price comparison sites, deal and voucher sites, booking platforms, directories and editorial cost articles are excluded, because the figures on them are not the provider’s own published price.

What the records have found so far

Six findings have come out of the observations that no undated range could have shown.

Peels are not priced by depth. Depth decides the result and the recovery of a chemical peel, and it is the thing the published prices will not say. Of 24 providers, four stated a depth alongside a price and one published a figure for a full face medium depth peel. Any medium depth range quoted elsewhere rests on something other than published prices.

Filler prices mostly refuse the unit. Sixteen of 24 pages published a filler price of some kind, but only eleven published one against a stated volume. An area price with no volume compares nothing, because the same named area can mean half a millilitre at one provider and two at another.

The spread inside one provider can match the spread across the market. On the skin peel panel one provider’s own list ran from £130 to £480, which is most of the range of the whole sample. A median across providers is a weaker number than it looks.

A published price is not always stable inside a single page. On the laser hair removal panel one provider publishes a price table giving underarms at £34 a session and, further down the same page, a medium area including underarms at £125 a session. The two differ by a factor of 3.7 and describe the same area on the same day, so that provider is recorded in full and pooled nowhere.

Laser hair removal ran well below the range this directory used to state. The guide here had said £80 to £150 a session for underarms. The published figures were £30 to £85 with a median of £50, and only one of seven reached £80. The old range was removed rather than restated, which is what these records are for.

One treatment cannot be pooled at all. Thread lifts are the eighth record and the first in which no unit is priced by three separate providers in the same words. Five of 24 publish a thread price, fourteen do not offer the treatment, and one provider in 24 publishes the thread count, which is the thing that sets the price. The record gives the spread of the 32 figures and refuses an average.

Using and citing the figures

Journalists, clinicians and resource pages are welcome to use these figures. Cite the record, the observation number and its date, for example: National Aesthetics, UK skin peel published price observations, Observation 1, 8 October 2026. The date matters because each observation keeps its own figures: when the next observation is made the headline numbers change and the earlier one stays listed in that record’s version history, so a citation made against an observation number stays accurate.

What these records are not: a price list, a quotation, an offer, a ranking or a comparison of providers. A published price describes something a provider chose to advertise on a given day. It does not establish what anybody will be charged, what an appointment includes, or whether treatment is appropriate at all. Those questions belong with a registered practitioner who has assessed you, and how we verify sets out the register checks worth running first.

Where the series stands

All eight treatments this directory indexes now have a record, and no guide here states a price range that is not sourced to a dated observation. The next work on this series is a second observation of the treatments read first, because a record is only as current as the date on it.

Related reading on this directory: the treatment guides, how we verify and our editorial policy.