How much does sound masking cost in the UK? (2026)

Sound masking costs around £18 to £32 per square metre of open-plan floor installed in the UK, so a typical 1,000 m2 floor lands at £20,000 to £30,000 including design, emitters, zone controller and DSP, cabling, calibration and commissioning. Smaller deployments sit at the top of the per-metre band because the controller and commissioning are fixed costs; full-building rollouts sit at the bottom.

From the floor. The number that surprises clients is how small a share of the budget the emitters are. The rest is night-shift labour above the ceiling grid, the cable runs back to the controller and two evenings of an engineer walking the floor with a sound level meter. Cut the commissioning and you have bought an expensive hum. (David Corker, Technical Sales Director)

Sound masking cost by floor size

Area treated	Typical installed cost (UK)	Per m2	What it covers
Single private office or meeting room	£500 to £2,000 per room	n/a	1 to 4 emitters on a small controller or an existing zone, tuned for speech privacy at the door
500 m2 open-plan floor	£14,000 to £16,000	£28 to £32	Emitters on a 3 to 5 m grid, zone controller and DSP, cabling, commissioning
1,000 m2 floor	£20,000 to £30,000	£20 to £30	As above, two to four zones, two to four working nights on site
2,000 m2 floor or two floors	£36,000 to £48,000	£18 to £24	Volume pricing on emitters and cable, shared controller, phased night work

Quotes usually show commissioning and tuning as a separate line, typically £1,000 to £2,500 per floor, and the floor figures above include it. It is the part that decides whether the system is noticed: each zone is measured at ear height on a grid and tuned to within plus or minus 2 dBA of the design spectrum, which is why a sound masking system is priced after a site visit or floor-plan review rather than from a square-metre rate alone.

What drives the price

Ceiling type. An accessible suspended grid is the cheapest to work in. Exposed soffits need direct-field emitters (or directional K-Array units) on visible mounts, plus access equipment, which pushes a floor towards the top of the band.
Plenum versus direct-field emitters. Older indirect systems fire into the ceiling void and need more units to even out; direct-field emitters face down from the tile and cover more reliably per unit.
Networked versus analogue. Networked platforms (Biamp Cambridge QtPro, Logison AC-S) cost more per emitter but self-monitor, zone from software and re-tune after an office reconfiguration without re-cabling.
Integration with paging or background music. Running announcements or music through the same emitters adds inputs and DSP but saves a second speaker system across the floor.
Zoning granularity. Per-team zones with different levels for a boardroom, open plan and breakout cost more in controller channels than a whole-floor setting.

Sound masking is usually specified alongside the rest of the office audio system on a fit-out, where it shares containment and DSP with paging, which brings the per-metre rate down.

Quick reference: around £18-£32 per m2 installed; 500 m2 floor £14k-£16k, 1,000 m2 £20k-£30k, 2,000 m2 £36k-£48k; single office or meeting room £500-£2,000; commissioning typically £1k-£2.5k per floor, shown separately.