From the blog
Where electrical work comes from, and the channel you're already paying for
· Robert McLaggan
Electricians have two lead sources no other trade gets, and most never work either. The first is the public register that comes with your competent-person scheme — NICEIC, NAPIT, SELECT and ELECSA all run searchable 'find an electrician' listings that your membership already pays for, and homeowners are actively pointed at them. The second is Google Local Services Ads, which charges per lead instead of per click and is only open to Part P or scheme-registered electricians, so the competition is capped by the registration you already hold; reported costs run around £20–£55 a lead. The shared platforms sit alongside those at roughly £5–£35 a lead on MyBuilder, £15–£40 plus a subscription on Rated People, around £1.80 a credit on Bark, and a 12-month membership on Checkatrade. EV charging is where the growth is, gated behind OZEV installer authorisation, with grants of up to £500 a socket running to March 2027. And the steadiest work in the trade is the landlord EICR — except it repeats on a five-year clock, which is long enough that whoever contacts the landlord first in year five gets the job.
Electricians are unusual among the trades: two of the best routes to work are ones you can't buy your way into, and one of them you're already paying for without using it.
Here's the full picture — what each source costs, and which ones suit the way electrical work actually arrives.
The register you already pay for
If you're on a competent-person scheme — NICEIC, NAPIT, SELECT, ELECSA — your registration includes a listing on a public register that homeowners are actively directed to. Electrical Safety First runs one that covers the schemes, and every piece of consumer advice about electrical work ends with some version of "use a registered electrician", with a link.
It costs nothing extra, because you're already paying the scheme fee. The catch is that a lot of entries are years stale: an old mobile number, no description, postcodes from when the business covered a different patch. Ten minutes fixing yours is the cheapest thing on this page.
It won't fill a diary on its own. It does catch the customer who has been told to check the register before hiring anyone — which is exactly the customer who isn't ringing round for the lowest price.
Google, free and paid
Google Business Profile. The same story as every trade: "electrician near me" produces the map results, and recent reviews plus real photos decide whether you're in the two or three that get rung. Free, slow, and yours.
Local Services Ads. Worth separating from ordinary Google Ads, because the model is different — you pay per lead rather than per click, so a browser who taps and bounces costs you nothing. Reported costs sit around £20–£55 a lead.
The interesting part is the eligibility. Electricians can only run them through Part P or a competent-person scheme, with at least £2 million of public liability cover. That gate caps who you're bidding against. On an open lead platform the enquiry goes to whoever paid; here the pool is limited to businesses that cleared the same bar you did.
The shared platforms
The four big ones serve electrical work the way they serve everything else. Reported figures put everyday enquiries at £5–£35 on MyBuilder (charged only when a customer shortlists you), £15–£40 a lead on Rated People on top of a subscription of around £30–£60 a month, and Bark at roughly £1.80 a credit. Checkatrade is a 12-month membership instead — cheapest listing £30 + VAT a month, lead plans quoted per trade and postcode.
We've covered how the four compare and what Checkatrade actually costs properly elsewhere. The short version for electricians: they're a reasonable way to fill gaps and a poor way to build a business, because you're renting access to customers who stay theirs.
EV charging, which is gated on purpose
This is where the growth is, and the barriers are the reason it's worth entering.
To install chargepoints properly you need to be a qualified electrician on a competent-person scheme with EV-specific training. To offer customers the government grants you have to apply separately and be authorised. Five chargepoint grant schemes run until 31 March 2027, with rates of up to £500 a socket from April 2026 — aimed at flats, renters, landlords and businesses rather than at households that already have a driveway.
Two things follow. The authorisation is itself a lead source, because a customer chasing a grant needs an authorised installer and will search for one. And the charger manufacturers — Pod Point, Ohme and the rest — run request-a-quote flows that route enquiries to installers on their networks, which is closer to being handed work than buying it.
Against an install at £950–£1,400, the training and paperwork pay back quickly if the work is there in your area.
The five-year clock
The steadiest electrical work never appears on a platform at all. Rented homes in England, Scotland and Wales need an electrical inspection at least every five years, so every landlord EICR you do is a job that comes round again on a known date.
Except five years is a long time. Long enough for the landlord to lose your number, for you to change your van livery, and for whoever knocks first in year five to take it. Annual gas work re-books itself through sheer frequency; a five-year cycle only repeats if somebody wrote it down.
That's the whole opportunity. A list of every EICR you've issued, the property, the owner and the year it falls due is worth more than any subscription, and nobody can outbid you for a customer you contacted first. If you also do the landlord's compliance paperwork properly, you're the obvious call.
It's the same reason the Amendment 4 changeover is worth being tidy about: the record you keep is the asset, not the certificate you handed over.
Which of these is worth your money
Run the same test on all of it: not what a lead costs, but what a won job costs.
Electrical work spreads wide. A fault-find call-out against a day rate of £250–£400 is a different proposition from a rewire at £1,500–£10,000, and a £30 lead lands very differently on each. On the small end you need to convert nearly everything you buy; on installs you can afford to lose four out of five and still be well ahead.
Which means the honest answer to "should I buy leads?" is: for installs, probably, and measure it. For small works, the free channels — the register, your profile, the customers you already have — will out-earn anything you pay for, because the fee doesn't shrink to match the job.
Which brings it back to records. Every source on this page is judged the same way — what did it send, what did it earn — and that judgement needs written-down numbers rather than a memory of a busy month.
For electricians there's a second reason to keep them, and it's the stronger one. The customer list is the lead source. A landlord you certified in 2026 is a job in 2031; a kitchen you rewired is a fault call in three years and an EV charger next spring. None of that repeats itself automatically, and none of it can be outbid — but only if the record survives, with the property, the owner and the date it falls due.
That's a spreadsheet's worth of work and worth doing however you do it. grafter.ly keeps it as a side effect of the job itself: enquiries you forward in by email arrive as jobs with the source attached, and the customer, the address and what you did stay attached to them afterwards.
Sources. Per-lead figures for MyBuilder, Rated People and Bark are from the Local Adder trade lead cost tracker (last verified 22 July 2026) — reported figures rather than published tariffs, and not electrician-specific. Checkatrade's published pricing is from its own guide and join page, checked 20 August 2026. Local Services Ads mechanics and eligibility are from Google's own UK help pages; the per-lead costs are reported by UK agencies running these accounts, not published by Google. EV chargepoint grant rates, scheme count and the 31 March 2027 end date are from GOV.UK's installer guidance (last updated 7 July 2026). Scheme registers: NICEIC and Electrical Safety First. Job values are from published UK price guides. All checked 28 August 2026.
Common questions
- How much do electrician leads cost in the UK?
- On the shared platforms, third-party trackers put everyday trade enquiries at roughly £5–£35 on MyBuilder and £15–£40 on Rated People on top of a subscription, with Bark selling credits at around £1.80 each and Checkatrade working as a 12-month membership. Google Local Services Ads is reported at roughly £20–£55 per lead. None of these are electrician-specific published tariffs, so get your own quote before you budget.
- Does my NICEIC or NAPIT membership get me work?
- It can, and it's the most-ignored channel in the trade. NICEIC, NAPIT, SELECT and ELECSA all run public registers that homeowners are pointed at when they're told to use a registered electrician, and Electrical Safety First runs one covering the schemes too. You already pay for the registration. Whether your entry has a current phone number, a description of what you do and the right postcodes on it is worth ten minutes of an evening.
- What are Google Local Services Ads and can electricians use them?
- They sit above the normal search ads and charge per lead rather than per click — you pay when someone rings or messages, not when they tap and bounce. Electricians can use them in the UK, but eligibility runs through Part P or a competent-person scheme such as NICEIC, ELECSA or NAPIT, plus public liability cover of at least £2 million. That gate is the point: the pool of businesses you're up against is smaller than on an open platform.
- Is EV charger installation worth getting into?
- It's where the growth is, and it's gated, which is usually a good sign. You need to be a qualified electrician on a competent-person scheme with EV-specific training, and to offer the government grants you must apply to become an authorised installer. Five chargepoint grant schemes run until 31 March 2027, with rates of up to £500 a socket from April 2026. The manufacturers' quote flows also route enquiries to installers on their networks.
- What's the most reliable source of electrical work?
- Landlord EICRs, if you keep a record of them. Rented homes in England, Scotland and Wales need an inspection at least every five years, so the work repeats on a fixed clock. The catch is the length of that clock — five years is long enough to lose the customer entirely unless you've written down when each property is due and who owns it.