What does a panic room actually cost in the UK?

From around £6,000 for a properly reinforced refuge conversion within an existing room, up to £250,000 or more for a fully independent safe room with ballistic protection and standalone air and communications. Most family installations land somewhere between those two poles, and siting and drills matter more than spend. The money buys progressively more at each level: a basic door-and-walls refuge first, then comms redundancy so you can call for help from inside, then ballistic glazing tested to EN 1063 and security joinery tested to PAS 24, and finally fully independent ventilation and power at the top end. Two mistakes matter more than the budget itself: a safe room the family cannot actually reach from the bedrooms is just expensive furniture, and one nobody has ever drilled is worse still. Our role throughout is independent — we specify the requirement, introduce vetted builders, and hold the finished work to that specification; we sell nothing ourselves, so the recommendation is only ever about what you actually need.

What the money buys at each level

From around £6,000 — the reinforced refuge. An existing room, usually a dressing room or bathroom off the master bedroom, given a solid-core security door in a reinforced frame, strengthened walls where the construction needs it, and hinges and locks that hold against sustained force. Its job is simple: buy minutes, behind a door that will not give, while help is called.

The middle of the range — communications and glazing. The next money goes on being able to summon help reliably: a hard-wired line and mobile signal that work from inside, monitored-alarm integration, and power for light and phones. Where the room has a window, ballistic glazing tested to EN 1063 and security joinery tested to PAS 24 close the two openings an intruder actually uses. Most family installations finish here.

£250,000 and beyond — the independent room. Standalone ventilation with its own filtered air supply, independent power, dedicated communications, and structural work that treats the room as a separate envelope inside the house. This level exists for a small number of genuinely elevated-threat households; for most families it is spending that a better routine and a monitored perimeter would beat.

What decides the price for your house

Four things move the figure more than anything on a brochure: how far the chosen room already is from the spec (a masonry-walled dressing room converts for a fraction of what a stud-walled one does); whether services — air, power, comms — already run near it; how much making-good the finish demands, because a safe room in a listed Georgian house must disappear into it; and access, since a third-floor room in a terraced street receives materials very differently from a ground floor with a driveway. This is why the honest answer is a survey rather than a price list.

The mistakes that waste the money

The room the family cannot reach is the classic one: a safe room off the hallway protects nobody who sleeps upstairs, because the route to it passes the risk. The second is the undrilled room — a family that has never walked the route at night, keys in the wrong place, a door someone has to remember to unlock. The third is spending on steel while the alarm goes unmonitored and the side gate stays open: a refuge is the last layer of a plan, and buying it first is buying the plan backwards.

Our role

Independent throughout. We assess whether you need a refuge at all, specify the requirement if you do, introduce accredited builders, and hold the finished work to that specification — we sell no hardware and take no commission, so the recommendation is only ever about what you actually need.

Written by the founder, First Class Executive Security

30+ years in the security industry, 20+ in close protection