About

Who runs this trades directory

UK Trades Directory is a public list of local tradespeople in 37 large UK cities, including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Brighton. The same site has a Malta partition for the whole island. Cost notes, grant explainers and five calculators sit beside the lists, so you can read a typical price and a relevant rule before you phone.

How a visit works

Start with a city and a trade: roofing, plumbing and heating, electrical, painting and decorating, locksmith, building and conversions, gardening or cleaning. Each combination has its own list of businesses that cover that place. Open a profile when you want the phone number, email or website printed for that firm, then call, email or open that website yourself.

You can arrive at the same list from more than one page:

  • The full directory is every UK card on one page, with filters for trade, city, 24-hour cover and a public qualification.
  • A city page, such as London or Glasgow, lists the trades in that city and a short note on the housing that usually changes a quote.
  • A trade page lists that trade across the 37 cities, then a city-and-trade page narrows it to one place.
  • The contact-details page asks only for the city and the trade, then opens that list. It does not take a description of the job.

The lists, the guides and the calculators open straight away. You read them without signing in. A reply, a site visit and a written quote come from the firm you contacted. A business that wants a record changed writes to the address at the bottom of this page.

What a list shows before the profile

A card on a list is the short version: the business name, the trade and city, an address or service area when we have one, a line on the work, a price note if the record includes one, and a phone number, website or email. “Open profile” is the longer card.

Two extra checks stay on the list rather than sending you somewhere else. One keeps firms whose record says they offer 24-hour cover. The other keeps firms whose record already shows a public qualification. Both start from what is printed on the card. A firm without those fields simply stays out of that filtered view.

When a city-and-trade page has too few firms to be a useful list, the page says so and points you to the wider trade list or the rest of that city. Another city’s firms are not used to fill the gap.

What a profile shows

A profile is a contact card. It names the business, the trade and the city or service area, and it shows a phone number when one is on the record. The rest appears only when we hold it:

  • An address or a coverage note, including a yard or office that sits in a neighbouring town.
  • A website and an email.
  • Opening hours, and whether the firm offers 24-hour cover.
  • A short note on services, and a price note such as “quote on request” when that is all the record says.
  • A public qualification, when one is already on the record.
  • A link back to the city-and-trade list, so you can open the next firm without searching again.

Empty fields stay empty. A missing phone number is left as “no phone number listed”, rather than replaced with a guessed one. The card is there so you can reach the firm. The quote, the insurance and the work itself stay between you and the business.

How to read a qualification

Gas Safe, NICEIC, NAPIT, TrustMark and FENSA are marks that already exist on public registers. On this site they are printed only when that mark is already on the firm’s record. A profile with no qualification line is a firm we can name, not a firm we have checked and found unqualified.

The mark belongs to the register that issued it. For gas work, the useful next step is the Gas Safe Register, using the business name or the engineer’s details. For notifiable electrical work in a dwelling, NICEIC or NAPIT on the profile is a starting point, and the grant and rules pages say when Part P, a Scottish building warrant or the Northern Ireland rules are the ones that apply. MCS appears in the same way when a heat-pump grant is the question: the listing can show the mark, and the grant page explains who may carry out the work.

A listing is not a warranty, an insurance policy or a planning approval. Building control, a landlord’s consent and a written quote are still separate from the card.

What to ask before you book

Homeowners usually want two or three written quotes, not a single figure from a national average. On the phone, four questions sort most of the confusion:

  • Does the figure include VAT, and is the firm VAT-registered?
  • What does the visit include? Scaffolding, parts, waste removal and an out-of-hours call are often extra.
  • If the job is gas or a heat pump, whose registration covers it, and will that name be on the paperwork?
  • Is the appointment a look at the job, or the work itself?

The cost notes are there so the answer has a published band beside it. They name a source and a date. London and other large cities often sit apart from a UK-wide band, and the relevant guide says where. A band is a check before you call. It is not a price this site can honour.

Costs, grants and calculators

The cost notes cover common jobs: a new roof, a replacement boiler, a house rewire, an extension priced per square metre, and external wall insulation, plus two Malta jobs in euros. Each page separates what the published figure usually leaves out, and what to have ready when you phone.

The grant pages explain schemes and rules that sit beside the job: the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme, Gas Safe, Part P and building regulations. Each page says where the scheme applies. An England and Wales grant is not assumed to cover a home in Scotland or Northern Ireland just because a firm in Glasgow or Belfast is on a list. This site does not decide whether you qualify. The page points at the official source, and you check that before you book.

The five calculators run in the browser. Use them to walk into a call with a range. The figures you type stay on that page.

  • Roof area turns lengths and a pitch into an area you can read beside a roofing quote.
  • Heating power is a rough kilowatt check beside a boiler quote.
  • Heat-pump savings is a simple comparison to keep next to the grant notes.
  • Renovation budget splits labour, materials and a contingency for larger building work.
  • Hourly rate sets a day rate against a lump sum, which helps when a listing only publishes time.

Notes for the week the job comes up

The maintenance notes are shorter than the cost guides. They are written for a particular week: a meter reading before a price-cap change, an outdoor tap before the first frost, a gutter in autumn rain, a boiler that will not fire, a damp patch, a roof leak. Each one says what you can look at yourself, and the point at which a qualified person should take over. They are not a substitute for the list. The list is where the phone number is.

Where the listings come from

UK names are compiled from Companies House filings in relevant construction SIC codes, public qualification registers, trade-association directories and manual checks. A company filing usually supplies the registered name and an address. A phone number, a website, opening hours or a qualification is added only when it is already in one of the other sources. If it is not, the field stays blank.

Malta listings, when present, come from the Malta Business Registry, public trade sources and the business’s own website. The same rule applies: a blank field is a gap in the record, not a detail filled in to make the card look finished.

The pages are ordinary files. A change is made in the data, then the profile and the lists that mention it are built again. There is no public form for a business to rewrite its own card, and there is no account to sign into.

Places and trades on the site

The UK lists cover 37 large cities and these eight trades:

A town that sits beside a larger city is described on that city’s page, rather than given a list of its own. Cheltenham, for example, is covered from the Gloucester page, along with Churchdown and Brockworth. The city menu in the header lists all 37.

Housing changes the quote more often than the city name alone. Victorian terraces, stone tenements, post-war stock and a conservation area each show up in the short local note on that city’s page. Read that note, then the rule page for the nation the house is in.

What the price line on a card means

Many cards say “quote on request”. That is the honest line when the firm has not published a pound figure we can repeat. A few cards do print a figure or a rate, and that number is the firm’s own note, copied onto the profile. It is not a price this site has negotiated, and it is not a promise that the same figure will apply to your house.

A national band on a cost page and a figure on a card are different things. The band comes from a named guide, with a date, and describes a typical job. The card describes one firm. Use the band to notice when a phone quote is far outside the usual range, then ask the four questions above. Access, the pitch of a roof, whether a boiler is a straight swap, and whether the work is in a conservation area move the price more than the city name on its own.

One job, from the list to the call

A boiler that needs replacing is a typical path through the site. Open plumbers in Bristol, or whichever city the house is in. Look for Gas Safe on the cards that have it, and open two or three profiles that show a phone number. Before you dial, the boiler cost note gives a published band for a standard combi, and the grant pages separate a like-for-like boiler from a heat pump under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. The heating-power calculator is there if you want a rough kilowatt figure in front of you. Then you phone. The site stops at the number.

A roof leak is the same shape with different pages. The city roofing list, the new-roof note if the job may be more than a repair, and the roof-area calculator if you can measure from the ground. Scaffolding and VAT often sit outside a tile price. The maintenance notes are for the evening you are deciding whether it can wait until morning.

The Malta partition

The Malta partition is a separate set of pages for the whole island. It uses the same eight trades, with euro cost notes for jobs that are common there, such as a split-system air conditioner and roof waterproofing. Those cards are kept off the UK city lists, and UK prices are not copied onto the Malta pages. The language is English, aimed at readers in Malta. The operator and the correction email are the same as for the UK lists.

If your business is on the list

The public site is written for people who need a tradesperson, not as a brochure for the operator and not as a shop window a firm can buy. Business websites appear on that firm’s own profile. There is no paid place at the top of a list, and there is no badge issued by this site.

If a name, phone number, address, trade or city is wrong, or if you want the profile taken down, email support@ahandyuk.com. Include the business name as printed, the city, the trade and the profile URL. Say whether you are the business or the person named. A similar trading name in the same city is common, so the URL is what identifies the right card.

A correction updates this website. It does not amend Companies House, the Gas Safe Register or any other source the record was taken from. Those stay with the body that holds them. The timing and what happens to the email itself are on the privacy page.

Operator

ahandyuk operates this directory at ahandyuk.com. A confirmed request to take a listing down is handled within 48 hours, including a republish when the pages need to go out before the next regular update. A correction from the named business goes out on the next publish after that confirmation.