Resource — Trade Lead Times, Reviewed July 2026

Aluminium Fabrication Lead Times UK: Shopfronts, Doors and Curtain Walling

Allow 15–25 working days for a supply-only fabricated aluminium shopfront in the UK — Kingsland's standard is 21 working days from approved sizes, including standard-RAL powder coating. Commercial doorsets run similar; fabricated curtain walling scopes typically run 4–8 weeks depending on scope, well under the 19-week figure still circulating from a decade-old market report. Emergency replacement doors can be turned around in days by arrangement when sizes, photos and hardware spec arrive complete. Figures reviewed July 2026.

By Stephen Chappell, Managing Director, Kingsland Fabrications. Updated 3 July 2026. Trade-only — we supply and fabricate; we don't install.

Lead times by product (reviewed July 2026)

For a fabricated aluminium shopfront, allow 15–25 working days from approved sizes — our standard is 21 working days, and that figure already includes standard-RAL powder coating. The table below covers the products we fabricate, the typical range you should programme against, and the variables that push a job to either end of it. Every figure assumes approved sizes and signed-off CAD drawings; your own survey and sign-off time sits in front of all of them.

Product	System	Typical trade range	Kingsland standard	What moves it
Shopfront screens & doors	JD47	15–25 working days	21 working days	Colour (stock vs non-stock RAL), glazing spec, signage zone detail
Commercial entrance doorsets	TD68	15–25 working days	21 working days	Hardware supply, automation prep, security spec (PAS 24 / STS202)
Internal glazed screens & partitions	ID30	15–25 working days, often the quicker end	21 working days	Configuration (hinged, pivot, sliding, bi-fold), soft-close hardware
Commercial windows	SW60 / TW70	15–25 working days	21 working days	Double vs triple glazing, dual-colour finish, restricted-opening hardware
Curtain walling scopes	JCW	4–8 weeks	Quoted per scope	Glass lead time, grid density, shop-drawing sign-off, opening vents

Figures reviewed July 2026 — next review October 2026. The 21-working-day standard is our target from order confirmation, not a guarantee: most orders hit it, and we tell you at quote stage if the current book says otherwise. Curtain walling is quoted per scope because the glass, not the aluminium, usually sets the programme — our curtain walling cost guide covers why.

The lead-time stack: where the days actually go

A 21-working-day lead time is not three weeks of sawing. It is a stack of stages, and knowing which stage owns which days tells you exactly where a programme can be compressed — and where it can't. Stages three to seven below are the 21 working days on a standard stock-colour shopfront; the day counts are indicative averages and overlap in practice.

Sizes in, quote out

Within 24 hours

Send sizes, configuration and colour and we return a quotation with CAD drawings within 24 hours during the working week. This stage sits before the lead-time clock — it costs you a day, not a week.

Sign-off

You control this

The clock starts when you approve the sizes and drawings — not when you first enquire. In practice this is the most common delay in the whole process: a quote that sits unapproved for a fortnight adds a fortnight to the job, and no workshop can claw that back.

Profile from the systems house

~5 working days

We fabricate Jack Aluminium systems, and profile is called off per order. Stock-colour profile arrives in around a week; an order-in colour has to be extruded or coated to order, which is where non-stock RAL earns its adder.

Powder coating

~5 working days

Polyester powder coating happens before fabrication, not after — profile is coated in length, then cut and machined. Standard-RAL coating runs inside the standard lead time; it is already counted in the 21 working days.

Machining and jig assembly

~7 working days

Cutting, CNC machining, cleating and crimping, hardware prep and assembly — then every order is test-fitted in the workshop jig before dispatch. This is the only part of the stack that is actually fabrication, and it is rarely the part that slips.

Glazing and beading

~2 working days

Where the order is factory-glazed, units are glazed and beaded in the workshop so they arrive ready to fit. Standard sealed units are ordered early in the process; special glass is the exception that can dominate the whole programme.

Palletise and deliver

~2 working days

Wrapped, labelled by opening reference, palletised and booked for delivery to your depot or site throughout mainland Britain. Delivery is scheduled by booking link — take the slot early.

The honest reading of that stack: roughly half of it is procurement and finishing — profile and powder coat — and only a third is fabrication labour. That is why the answer to "can you do it quicker?" depends far more on your colour and glass choices than on how hard the workshop works. Pick a stock colour and standard sealed units and the stack shortens itself; pick an order-in RAL and acoustic glass and no amount of overtime changes the arithmetic.

How much lead time does powder coating add?

Stock-colour profile — white, black, the common greys and mill finish — adds nothing: standard-RAL polyester powder coating is already inside the 21-working-day standard. A non-stock RAL typically adds 5–10 working days, because the profile has to be coated to order before we can cut it. Dual-colour (a different finish inside and out) and marine-grade coatings add more again — we confirm the exact adder when quoting, before you commit.

The sequencing is the part most programmes miss. Aluminium profile is powder coated in length, before fabrication — not sprayed as a finished frame afterwards. That means a colour change after sign-off doesn't tweak the schedule; it resets it, because new profile has to be procured and coated from scratch. A late RAL swap is the single most expensive change order in the whole process, in both time and money.

The practical rule for anyone writing a programme: fix the colour at the same moment you fix the sizes. The full RAL range is available either way — the question is only whether your colour is sitting on a shelf or has to be made. The glossary covers the finish and standards terminology if the spec language is unfamiliar.

"The change order that hurts is never the size tweak — it's the colour change after the profile's been coated. New profile, new coating run, new clock. Decide the RAL when you decide the sizes and you've bought the cheapest schedule insurance there is."

— Stephen Chappell, Managing Director

Emergency replacement doors: how fast is realistic?

Days rather than weeks, by arrangement. For reactive maintenance companies with a failed commercial door or storm-damaged shopfront, the constraint is almost never workshop time — it is the front end. A complete first message can be quoted, approved and on the saw the same week; an incomplete one spends that week in a back-and-forth of missing dimensions, and the emergency quietly becomes a standard job. Rush work may carry an expedition fee depending on the turnaround — confirmed upfront, before you commit.

To compress the front end, send this in your first message and then call to confirm:

Sizes at three points. Width at head, mid-height and threshold; height at both jambs. Frames rack when they fail — one measurement isn't enough.
Three photos. The full opening straight-on, the hinge or pivot detail, and the threshold. Photos answer the questions we'd otherwise have to ring you about.
Hardware and pivot spec. Floor spring or pivot set, closer type, panic hardware, locking. Hardware is the longest-lead component on an emergency doorset — name it early.
Colour. The RAL number if known, or a daylight photo of the existing frame for matching. A stock colour keeps the job in days; a non-stock RAL moves it out.

Complete information can cut the quote-and-approve loop from days to hours. And jig-testing is what makes the swap itself a one-visit job: every order is test-fitted in our workshop jigs before dispatch, which is why 99% of what we ship fits first time. On an emergency, that difference matters more than anywhere else — a first-fit failure on a boarded-up frontage means another visit, another board-over, another unhappy end client. Our replacements service and the replacement survey checklist cover the survey side in detail.

A fabricated aluminium door frame being checked in the assembly jig at the Warrington workshop before dispatch — Every order is test-fitted in the workshop jig before dispatch — the reason an emergency swap is one site visit, not a measure-fit-remake loop.

Programming the glazing order: for shopfitters, main contractors and QSs

The rule of thumb for a fit-out programme: freeze sizes, spec and colour at least the full lead time plus a week's buffer before the install slot. For a standard shopfront on a 21-working-day lead time, that means placing the order 5–6 weeks out. If the order includes special glass — acoustic units, fire-rated glazing, oversized panes — check the glass lead time before you write the programme, because on many orders it is the true critical path and it belongs to the glass industry's schedule, not the fabricator's.

Supply-only fabrication slots into a programme more cleanly than most trades. There is no wet-trade dependency and no fabricator crew to sequence around your other subcontractors: the order is fabricated while earlier trades are still on site, then delivered palletised and labelled by opening reference for your own team to fit when the programme calls for it. Order early, deliver just-in-time. How that split works in practice is covered in our supply-only trade fabrication guide.

One stale number deserves a direct correction, because it still appears in programmes and cost plans: the roughly 19-week lead time often quoted for stick curtain walling. That figure traces to a pre-2020 market survey of large stick-built commercial systems — big-building facade scopes with bespoke engineering and long glass procurement. It was never a shopfit number. Typical fabricated curtain walling scopes at shopfit and small-commercial scale run 4–8 weeks in 2026, driven mainly by glass lead time and colour choice. If a programme you have inherited carries 19 weeks for a two-storey JCW-scale curtain wall, it is carrying three months of float that could be handed back to the project.

What extends a lead time — and what doesn't

Extends it

Non-stock RAL — profile coated to order before fabrication can start; typically 5–10 working days on top.
Special glass — acoustic, fire-rated and oversized units run to the glass industry's schedule, not ours.
Hardware supply chains — specialist closers, operators and access-control locking can outrun the aluminium.
Size changes after CAD sign-off — a changed size after approval is a new order for the affected frames, not an edit.

Doesn't (much)

Order volume, within reason — one door or a full frontage runs through the same stack; the stages parallelise.
Delivery distance — palletised delivery from Warrington throughout mainland Britain is routine and booked into the last days of the stack, wherever the site is in England, Wales or Scotland.
Factory glazing vs loose glass — glazing and beading in the workshop adds little to our time and saves plenty of yours on site.

The honest caveat on all of the above: lead times move with workload. A published figure is an average over the order book, and the order book changes weekly — which is exactly why the right final step is not reading this page, it is asking us what the current book looks like against your dates.

Frequently asked questions

What is the standard lead time for a fabricated aluminium shopfront?

21 working days from approved sizes and signed-off CAD drawings at Kingsland, including standard-RAL powder coating. Typical figures in the UK trade run 15-25 working days, plus your own survey and sign-off time at the front end.

How fast can an emergency replacement aluminium door be fabricated?

Days rather than weeks, by arrangement — the limiting factor is information, not workshop time. Send sizes at three points, three photos and the hardware spec in the first message and call to confirm; incomplete information is what turns an emergency job into a standard one.

Is the 19-week curtain walling lead time still accurate?

No. That figure traces to a pre-2020 market survey of large stick-built commercial systems. Typical fabricated curtain walling scopes at shopfit and small-commercial scale run 4-8 weeks in 2026, driven mainly by glass lead times and colour choice.

Does powder coating delay fabrication?

Only for non-stock colours. Stock-colour profile adds no time; a non-stock RAL typically adds 5-10 working days because profile is coated before fabrication. Dual-colour (different inside/outside) and marine-grade finishes add more — decide colour early, it is the cheapest schedule insurance there is.

When should a shopfitter place the fabrication order in a fit-out programme?

Freeze sizes, spec and colour at least the full lead time plus a week's buffer before the install slot — for a standard shopfront, order 5-6 weeks out. If special glass is involved, check the glass lead time first; it, not the aluminium, is usually the critical path.