A method for the estimation of thermal conductivity of liquids is proposed. The measurement is based on the front face-modulated photothermal radiometry usually used for studies of solid deposit (thin film) on substrate systems. The system considered here is in the three-layer form, the intermediate layer being the investigated liquid. An experimental setup has been developed in order to avoid the drawbacks of the classical methods such as flash or hot wire measurement. The measurement is carried out with low-temperature oscillations, and the studied liquid is confined in a specific (low thickness) container. This configuration leads to very low Rayleigh number and permits us to eliminate the convection phenomenon during the experiment and to characterize a very small (~1 µl) volume of liquid. This is an important feature for metrology of expensive or hazardous samples. According to the knowledge of the thermophysical properties of two solid layers external to a liquid, the phase lag between the thermal perturbation and the response of the sample is used as the experimental data. The measurement was validated using two well-known liquids: water and sunflower oil.