Only 1 in 8 heating and gas engineer listings in Sheffield, Bradford, York and Hull mention heat pumps anywhere on their Google profile. We checked 314 public Google Maps listings a week before National Heat Pump Week, and just 12.7% (40 of 314) say “heat pump”, “air source” or “ground source” in their name, description or listed services. A third show no website, nearly 1 in 5 show no opening hours, and fewer than half have the four profile basics in place as winter arrives.
This is the second original data study from Unavoidable Marketing, following the Leeds Trades Google Gap 2026. This time we left Leeds and looked at heating and gas engineers in four other Yorkshire cities, because October is when boilers get switched back on and homeowners start searching.
How did we do the study?
| Method | Detail |
|---|---|
| Source | Public Google Maps business listings, retrieved through the DataForSEO Business Listings database on 5 October 2026. |
| Trades | Listings with “Central Heating Service” or “Gas engineer” as their main or an additional Google category. |
| Areas | A 10 km radius around the centres of Sheffield, Bradford, York and Hull, keeping only listings in that city’s own postcode area (S, BD, YO or HU) or with no published address. |
| Sample | 401 records from 41 requests (391 unique listings). York is every listing the database held in the radius (91). Sheffield (166), Hull (142) and Bradford (306) were sampled in ten blocks of ten spread across each list. |
| Exclusions | 23 closed listings, 40 outside the city’s postcode area, and 14 shops, suppliers, a manufacturer and unrelated firms. |
| Analysed | 314 listings: Sheffield 91, Bradford 57, York 84, Hull 82. |
| Freshness | 303 of 314 listings had been refreshed by DataForSEO since 1 July 2026. |
This is a snapshot of one database on one day, not a census of every heating engineer in Yorkshire. The four-city figures are the firm ones. City figures rest on 57 to 91 listings each, so treat them as indicative. No business is named.
How many heating engineers mention heat pumps on Google?
Just 40 of 314 listings (12.7%) mention heat pumps anywhere in the profile details we collected: the business name, the description or the services list. None used a heat pump category as their main category.
Sheffield had the highest share (17.6%, 16 of 91), then Hull (14.6%), York (13.1%) and Bradford, where only 1 of 57 listings mentioned heat pumps. National Heat Pump Week, run by the Heat Pump Association UK with Nineteen Group, takes place from 12 to 16 October 2026. A homeowner who reads about it and then searches Google for a local installer will find that most heating profiles say nothing about it.
The listings that do mention heat pumps tend to be better kept. 70.0% of them (28 of 40) have all four profile basics, against 41.6% of the rest. Their median review count is 24.5, against 6 for listings that do not mention heat pumps. That is an association, not proof that one causes the other.
How many show no website?
A third of listings (33.4%, 105 of 314) show no website link at all. A further 10 (3.2%) link to a directory or social media page rather than a site of their own. Bradford had the biggest gap, with 47.4% showing no website.
Listings with no website had a median of 2 Google reviews. Listings with a website had a median of 15.
Do heating engineers show their opening hours before winter?
Nearly 1 in 5 listings (17.2%, 54 of 314) show no opening hours. Of those 54, 44 (81.5%) appear not to be claimed by their owner, so nobody is managing what Google shows.
Of the 260 listings that do show hours:
- 59.2% (154) show as closed on Sundays;
- 36.2% (94) show weekday hours only, with no Saturday or Sunday;
- 66 listings (21.0% of all 314) show as open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Listed hours are not the same as emergency cover. Some engineers will take weekend calls without saying so on Google. But a homeowner with a cold house on a Sunday morning only sees what the profile says. Fewer than 1 in 4 listings (23.9%) mention emergency, out of hours or 24-hour work anywhere in their profile text.
How many have the basics in place?
We counted four basics: a claimed profile, opening hours, a website link and at least 5 photos. Fewer than half of listings (45.2%, 142 of 314) have all four. York did best (51.2%) and Bradford worst (36.8%).
| City | Listings | Mention heat pumps | No website | No opening hours | Not claimed | All four basics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sheffield | 91 | 17.6% | 29.7% | 18.7% | 16.5% | 42.9% |
| Bradford | 57 | 1.8% | 47.4% | 12.3% | 15.8% | 36.8% |
| York | 84 | 13.1% | 32.1% | 16.7% | 21.4% | 51.2% |
| Hull | 82 | 14.6% | 29.3% | 19.5% | 19.5% | 47.6% |
| All four cities | 314 | 12.7% | 33.4% | 17.2% | 18.5% | 45.2% |
Other gaps: 35.0% of listings have no business description, 28.0% list no services and 43.0% have fewer than 5 photos.
What do the review counts show?
Just over half of listings (51.9%, 163 of 314) have fewer than 10 Google reviews, and the median listing has 8.5. Ratings are high across the board: of the 151 listings with 10 or more reviews, 76.8% are rated 4.8 or higher. Reviews are concentrated at the top, with the best-reviewed 31 listings holding 60.5% of the 11,115 reviews counted. That is almost the same pattern we found for Leeds trades in September.
What can heating engineers do about it this month?
None of this needs a big budget. Most of it is an afternoon with your Google Business Profile.
- Claim and verify your profile. It is free, and it is the only way to control your hours, services and photos.
- Say what you actually do. If you install, service or repair heat pumps, add them to your services list and your description. If you do not, say clearly which boilers and systems you cover.
- Set honest winter hours. If you take emergency or weekend calls, show it. If you do not, set your real hours so customers are not left guessing.
- Add a website link. One clear page with your services, the areas you cover, your Gas Safe registration and a phone number gives customers, and Google, somewhere to go.
- Upload real photos. Recent installs, your van and your team. Five is the bare minimum.
- Check whether Google Verified fits. Heating is one of the trades eligible for Google Local Services Ads for heating engineers, which carry the Google Verified badge at the top of search results.
If you would like a second pair of eyes first, our free Google profile check compares your profile with the three firms showing above you.
Can I use these figures?
Yes. Journalists, trade bodies and bloggers are welcome to quote the figures with a credit and a link to this page: “Figures: Unavoidable Marketing research, 2026.”
Want your heating business to be the one homeowners find this winter? Get in touch with Unavoidable Marketing. Let’s make you Unavoidable.
About the author: Andrew Heppinstall is the founder of Unavoidable Marketing, a Leeds agency that helps UK trades and local service businesses win work through Google Local Services Ads, SEO and paid search.