How to get more electrical work as a UK electrician

Electrical work comes from more places than most trades, which is good news if you spread your effort:

• Homeowners: faults, extra sockets, lighting, consumer units and rewires.
• Landlords and letting agents: safety inspections and the repairs they turn up.
• Commercial clients: shops, offices and small landlords who need testing and maintenance.
• New technology: EV chargers, solar panels and batteries.
• Other trades: builders, kitchen fitters and bathroom fitters who need an electrician they can rely on.
• Repeat customers and their referrals.

Ask every new customer how they found you and record the job value. After a few months you'll know which channel pays.

Your Google Business Profile is free and it's what shows in Maps when someone searches for an electrician nearby. Google's advice is to keep your information complete and accurate, respond to reviews and add photos. It also says there's no way to pay for a better local ranking.

1. 1If you work from home, hide your address and set a service area. Google says a service-area business should hide its address, and the area shouldn't usually be more than about two hours' drive from your base.
2. 2Use your real business name with no extra keywords. Google can suspend profiles that stuff names.
3. 3List each service you want more of, such as EICRs, consumer units and EV chargers.
4. 4Add photos of tidy boards, finished kitchens and charger installs.
5. 5Ask for a review after every good job. Our guide on getting more Google reviews is written for plumbers, but the rules and the review link work the same way for electricians.

Electricians can also use Google Local Services Ads, which charge per lead. Google warns that if you regularly fail to answer calls or respond to messages, your ad ranking may be affected. See our guide to Local Services Ads and missed calls first.

Customers and agents check credentials, so registration is marketing as well as compliance.

A competent person scheme lets you self-certify notifiable work instead of getting building regulations approval. GOV.UK adds that joining an electrical scheme puts you on the electrical competent person register, a single place for householders to find registered electricians in their area. That's a free route to customers who are already looking for someone registered.

Scheme fees are a cost to weigh against that. NICEIC's Domestic Installer scheme is £695 plus VAT in the first year and £595 plus VAT a year after that, at 2026 to 2027 prices.

Put your scheme logo and registration number on your website, quotes, van and Google Business Profile. A landlord choosing between two quotes will often pick the one that's clearly registered.

Rented homes come with a legal cycle of work. Under the electrical safety standards for the private rented sector in England, landlords must have the electrics checked at least every five years by a properly qualified person, and give tenants proof of the check. GOV.UK says the rules were extended to the social rented sector in 2025.

That means landlords, letting agents and housing associations all need a reliable electrician on a schedule. To win it:

1. 1Contact local letting agents and ask who arranges inspections and repairs.
2. 2Offer a simple service: book the inspection, send the report quickly and quote the remedial work clearly.
3. 3Keep a list of inspection dates and remind landlords before the five years are up.
4. 4Look for housing association and council testing contracts on Contracts Finder, which lists government contracts worth over £12,000 including VAT.

Our guide on what to charge as an electrician includes market prices for EICRs and consumer units to quote against.

It can be, and grants help homeowners and businesses say yes. GOV.UK says the government's home and workplace chargepoint grants have been extended for a final year, with five schemes available until 31 March 2027. They include:

• Up to £500 towards a chargepoint for people who rent, or who own and live in a flat, with private off-street parking.
• Up to £500 for households with only on-street parking that install a cross-pavement solution, such as a charging gully.
• Up to £500 per socket for workplaces, for up to 40 sockets.

Read the eligibility rules for each grant before you advertise it, because the details decide who qualifies. Then say clearly on your website and profile which grants you can help with, and tell past customers who've bought an electric car.

Solar panels and batteries are another route. Ofgem's Smart Export Guarantee means some electricity suppliers must pay small-scale generators, including solar PV, for electricity they export, which is part of how customers judge whether solar is worth it.

Electrician leads from lead sites can fill gaps, but check what you're paying for. Here's what the main sites publish about their own fees:

Sources: Checkatrade's join page, the Rated People help page for tradespeople, and MyBuilder's pages on its fees and how lead fees are calculated.

Measure the cost of each job you win. For example, £250 of lead fees that wins five jobs means each job cost £50 to win. Whether that's worth it depends on what those jobs are worth to you.

Marketing for electricians doesn't need to be clever. It needs to be consistent:

• A simple website with a page for each service you want more of, the areas you cover, your registration and real photos.
• The same business name and phone number on your website, van, invoices and Google profile.
• A short note to past customers once or twice a year, for example about EV chargers or inspection dates.
• Relationships with builders, kitchen fitters, plumbers and heating engineers. Heat pump and boiler work often needs an electrician, and our guide on how to get more boiler installations shows where that work comes from.

As quickly as you can. A customer with no power or a tripping RCD rings the next electrician if you don't answer. In the same BT Business survey, 58% of UK adults said they'd tell friends and family to avoid a business that didn't pick up.

The cost of a missed enquiry is the job's value times the chance it would have booked. For example, missing three enquiries a week that book half the time, at £200 a job, is £300 a week, or £15,600 a year. Use our missed call calculator with your own figures, and read what missed calls cost a UK trade for the full sum.

Then follow up properly:

1. 1Ring back missed callers within the hour where you can.
2. 2Send written quotes the same day.
3. 3Chase quotes after two or three days with a short, friendly message.
4. 4Tell agents and landlords exactly when you'll attend, and stick to it.