The UK Trades Google Gap 2026: what 777 Google Maps listings say about roofers, plumbers and electricians
By Andrew Heppinstall, Unavoidable Marketing, Leeds. Data retrieved 7 October 2026.
More than 6 in 10 roofers, plumbers and electricians on Google Maps (62.3%) have fewer than 10 Google reviews. We looked at 777 listings across 10 UK cities. The median listing had just 5 reviews, almost a third (31.7%) showed no website and nearly 1 in 4 (23.3%) appeared unclaimed by its owner. Every one of the 10 cities had a majority of listings under 10 reviews.
Figures: Unavoidable Marketing research, 2026. Free to quote with a link to this page.
Headline findings
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62.3% of listings (484 of 777) have fewer than 10 Google reviews. The median is 5, and 21.9% (170) have none at all.
What to do: ten reviews is a reachable bar. Ask every happy customer on the day the job is finished, with a direct review link sent by text.
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Electricians are furthest behind: 68.7% have fewer than 10 reviews, against 61.8% of roofers and 56.2% of plumbers.
Electricians also had the lowest median (4 reviews) and the highest share with no reviews at all (27.4%).
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Almost a third (31.7%, 246 of 777) show no website on their listing.
Listings with a website had a median of 9 reviews; listings without one had a median of 2, and 87.4% of them had fewer than 10 reviews. That is an association, not proof of cause, but the firms that look after one channel tend to look after the other.
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23.3% (181) do not appear to be claimed by their owner.
Those unclaimed listings had a median of 1 review, and 95.6% had fewer than 5 photos. Claimed listings had a median of 8 reviews.
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Reviews are concentrated at the top: the best-reviewed 10% of listings hold 66.8% of all 21,153 reviews counted.
A handful of firms in each city take most of the trust. Most of the field is thin, so a steady run of new reviews can lift a small firm past many of its rivals.
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Star ratings barely separate anyone. Of the 293 listings with 10 or more reviews, the average rating was 4.78 and 78.2% were rated 4.8 or higher. Review volume, recent reviews and a complete profile do more of the work.
The numbers by trade
| Trade | Listings | Median reviews | Under 10 reviews | No reviews | No website | Not claimed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roofers | 267 | 5 | 61.8% | 19.9% | 30.0% | 27.7% |
| Plumbers | 251 | 6 | 56.2% | 18.3% | 30.7% | 14.3% |
| Electricians | 259 | 4 | 68.7% | 27.4% | 34.4% | 27.4% |
| All three trades | 777 | 5 | 62.3% | 21.9% | 31.7% | 23.3% |
The numbers by city
Every city had a majority of listings under 10 reviews, from 53.8% in Glasgow to 67.4% in Birmingham. Birmingham also had the highest share with no website (41.9%). City samples are 65 to 86 listings, so treat city differences as indicative rather than a league table.
| City | Listings | Median reviews | Under 10 reviews | No reviews | No website | Not claimed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| London | 82 | 5 | 61.0% | 18.3% | 36.6% | 26.8% |
| Birmingham | 86 | 4 | 67.4% | 18.6% | 41.9% | 25.6% |
| Manchester | 76 | 4 | 61.8% | 25.0% | 26.3% | 17.1% |
| Leeds | 78 | 5 | 61.5% | 19.2% | 33.3% | 28.2% |
| Glasgow | 65 | 6 | 53.8% | 27.7% | 33.8% | 20.0% |
| Liverpool | 78 | 6 | 56.4% | 19.2% | 34.6% | 25.6% |
| Bristol | 83 | 5 | 62.7% | 18.1% | 24.1% | 25.3% |
| Sheffield | 78 | 5 | 65.4% | 25.6% | 28.2% | 20.5% |
| Newcastle | 80 | 5 | 65.0% | 25.0% | 33.8% | 25.0% |
| Cardiff | 71 | 4 | 66.2% | 23.9% | 22.5% | 16.9% |
| All 10 cities | 777 | 5 | 62.3% | 21.9% | 31.7% | 23.3% |
What a roofer, plumber or electrician should do next
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Reviews: get to 10, then keep going. Text a review link the day the job is finished and reply to every review.
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Profile: claim and verify your Google Business Profile, then set your main category, services, hours and the areas you cover.
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Website: link a proper website from your listing, even a single clear page with what you do, where, your accreditations and your number.
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Photos: upload real photos of finished jobs every month. 45.9% of the listings we analysed had fewer than 5.
Trade guides: SEO for roofers, SEO for plumbers and SEO for electricians. For a closer look at one city across eight trades, see The Leeds Trades Google Gap 2026.
Method
- Source
- Public Google Maps business listings, retrieved through the DataForSEO Business Listings database.
- Date
- Data retrieved on 7 October 2026. 753 of the 777 analysed listings had been refreshed in the database since 1 July 2026.
- Locations
- A 10 km radius around the centre of London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool, Bristol, Sheffield, Newcastle and Cardiff.
- Trades and categories
- Roofers (roofing_contractor), plumbers (plumber) and electricians (electrician). A listing matches if the category is its main or an additional Google category.
- Sample
- The database returns at most 10 listings per request. For each city and trade we took three blocks of 10, starting at positions 0, 50 and 100 in the database’s default order, which sorts by Google listing ID rather than by ranking, rating or reviews. The database held 11,510 matching listings across the 30 city and trade searches. For Cardiff plumbers, the blocks at positions 50 and 100 returned errors, so a block starting at position 25 was used and that cell is smaller.
- De-duplication and exclusions
- 858 unique listings were returned. Each is counted once, under the trade matching its main Google category, or otherwise the search that returned it. We removed 61 permanently closed listings and 20 non-trade results (for example electrical wholesalers, building materials suppliers and shops), leaving 777.
- Field rules
- Reviews and rating are the Google review count and average star rating; a listing with no rating counts as 0 reviews. “Not claimed” uses DataForSEO’s owner-verification flag; listings without the flag set count as not claimed. “No website” means the website field is empty. Photo counts use the listing’s photo total. Percentages are to one decimal place.
- Limitations
- This is a snapshot of one database on one day, not a census of every trade business in these cities. The all-trades figures (777 listings) are the most reliable; trade figures rest on 251 to 267 listings and city figures on 65 to 86, so treat those as indicative. The database order is not a random sample. Comparisons such as website versus no website show association, not cause. Individual businesses are not named, ranked or assessed.
Using these figures
Journalists, trade bodies and bloggers are welcome to quote these figures. Please credit Unavoidable Marketing and link to this page. For comment or the underlying anonymised data, call Andrew Heppinstall on 07749 941111.