Lead Flashing Offcuts: The Roofer's Overlooked Payday

Walk past any skip on a roofing job and you'll usually find the same thing: lead offcuts. Strips from flashings, step flashings, chimney saddles, trimmed edges from soakers. Grey, heavy, boring-looking, and quietly worth more per kilo than any other metal the average roofer touches.

Lead scrap is currently sitting around [INSERT CURRENT PRICE]/tonne, that's £1.50–£1.80 per kg. Most roofers throw it away. A day's worth of offcuts from a busy flashing job easily hits 15–25 kg, which is £25–£45 in your pocket per day. Over a year of flashing-heavy work that's comfortably a four-figure side income.

Here's the proper guide to lead offcuts, what to keep, how to handle it safely, and why the skip is the most expensive place you can put it.

What lead offcuts are actually worth

Lead prices have been strong through 2025 because of steady demand from battery manufacturing and construction (yes, lead is still used in flashing, nothing else works as well). At the time of writing, clean lead scrap fetches around [INSERT CURRENT PRICE]/tonne at UK yards.

In real money: - 1 kg of clean lead offcuts: £1.50–£1.80 - A bucket of offcuts from a half-day's flashing: 5–10 kg → £8–£18 - A full day's offcuts from heavy flashing work: 15–25 kg → £25–£45 - A week's accumulated offcuts from a busy roofing outfit: 60–100 kg → £100–£180 - A full roof strip-off of old lead (an old Victorian valley or parapet): can easily be 150+ kg → £250+

Even the most conservative estimate, one bucket of offcuts a week, 50 weeks a year, puts a typical roofer at £400–£900 a year in pure lead scrap. For offcuts currently going in the skip.

Why most roofers throw it away

Three reasons, all understandable:

1. "It's just scraps." Lead is heavy enough that it doesn't take much physical volume to add up, a handful of offcuts feels like nothing but weighs a surprising amount. The mental image of "scrap metal worth taking to a yard" is usually a pile of pipes, not a small bucket of grey strips.

1. "Too much hassle." The skip is right there. The scrap yard is a 20-minute drive. For a single job's worth of offcuts, it doesn't feel worth it.

1. "Someone else takes it." On larger sites, lead offcuts often disappear, sometimes to a labourer who knows their value, sometimes to a passing traveller, sometimes to whoever empties the skip. The roofer doing the actual work rarely sees the money.

All three are solvable. The fix is simple: a labelled bucket or bin on every job that goes into the van at the end of the day.

The bucket-and-bank system

You don't need to take lead to the yard every week. What you need is somewhere to put it during the week and a monthly trip to cash in.

On the job: - One plastic bucket labelled "LEAD" in the van or on site - Every offcut, no matter how small, goes in - At the end of the day, the bucket goes in the van

At base: - Tip the bucket into a larger bin or tub in your workshop, garage, or yard - Label the bin clearly so anyone else working with you knows it's not rubbish - Once the bin hits about 30–50 kg, it's a worthwhile yard trip

At the yard: - Lead gets weighed separately from any other scrap - Bring ID (passport or driving licence) and proof of address - You'll be paid by bank transfer, not cash

The whole system costs about 30 seconds a day in added effort. At £600–£1,500 a year of extra income, the hourly rate on that 30 seconds is comical.

Old lead vs. new lead offcuts

Both are worth taking, but old lead from strip-offs is often worth slightly more per kilo because it's denser and older lead tended to be higher purity.

New code 4 or code 5 offcuts (from new flashing work), top grade, clean, straight into the bucket.

Old stripped lead (from reroofing jobs, old valleys, old parapets), usually worth the same per kilo, but it'll be blackened, oxidised, and often bent up. Yards don't care about the cosmetic state; they only care about the weight.

Very old lead (Victorian lead pipe, old lead roof flat from a chapel job), sometimes counts as a slightly higher grade because of the purity. Ask the yard.

Don't mix lead with other metals. Lead can contaminate copper if stored together for long periods, and at the yard it needs to be weighed separately. Keep it in its own bucket.

The safety bit, don't skip this

Lead is toxic. This isn't scaremongering; it's genuine occupational health advice.

What to do: - Wear gloves when handling lead offcuts. Nitrile or thick work gloves are fine. - Don't eat, drink, or smoke while handling lead without washing your hands first. Lead transfers onto food surfaces and into your mouth that way, it's the single most common route to lead poisoning for tradespeople. - Wash your hands thoroughly before lunch, before leaving site, and at the end of the day. - Don't breathe lead dust or lead fumes. Cutting lead with an angle grinder creates fine dust, wear a mask if you do it regularly. Melting lead (lead welding, lead casting) produces fumes that are far more dangerous than the metal itself. - Don't let kids near it. Lead is particularly dangerous for children because developing brains absorb it more readily.

Roofers dealing with occasional flashing offcuts are at low risk if they follow basic hygiene. Roofers doing lead burning or lead welding all day are at real risk of elevated blood lead levels and should be having annual blood tests under the HSE's lead regulations.

Related: zinc, copper roofing, and other roof scrap

While you're building the habit of keeping lead offcuts, extend the same principle to other roofing scrap:

• Zinc sheet and zinc flashing, currently around [INSERT CURRENT PRICE]/tonne. Good price, often overlooked.
• Copper roof sheet and copper flashing, rare but extremely valuable when you run into it. Graded as heavy copper, £7+/kg.
• Stainless steel gutters and flashings, worth taking. Around [INSERT CURRENT PRICE]/tonne.
• Aluminium guttering offcuts, low value but adds up on big runs.

Keep them separately from the lead (and from each other where possible). One bucket per metal.

The bottom line

A roofer who chucks lead in the skip is losing £400–£1,500 a year, depending on workload. A roofer who puts it in a bucket and cashes in monthly is gaining that much for about 30 seconds of effort a day.

You don't have to get organised. But the maths doesn't care whether you think it's worth the effort.

For the complete picture: read our Tradesperson's Guide to Scrap Income.

Check today's UK lead scrap prices on our live price page.