Ten questions to ask yourself before you hire a builder
"How do I find a builder I can actually trust?" It's the question we get asked more than any other — and it's not surprising why.
Nearly a third of homeowners have delayed essential building work because they couldn't find a contractor they trusted enough to hire. Over 80% say they'd pay more for a licensed builder if that option existed. It doesn't, yet — there's still no licence required to call yourself a builder in the UK, and nearly half of homeowners don't realise that.
So before we get to how to check a builder, it's worth asking yourself a more honest question first: how much do you actually know about the one you're about to hire?
Ask yourself these ten questions
Be honest with yourself as you go through these. Most people get stuck around question four.
- Do I actually know if this builder is a registered company — or just a name on a van?
- If something goes wrong halfway through the job, do I know how I'd get my money back?
- Have I checked anything beyond their reviews and how professional their website looks?
- Would I recognise a red flag if I saw one at the quote stage?
- Do I know what insurance they're supposed to have — and have I actually seen the certificate, not just been told about it?
- If this company went out of business next month, is my work protected?
- Am I choosing them because I trust them, or because they were the cheapest quote?
- Do I know who I'd complain to if things went wrong?
- Have I asked how long they've actually been trading under this name?
- If I wanted to check any of the above right now — would I know where to look?
If you got to the end and the honest answer to most of these was "no" or "not really," you're not alone. Research shows fewer than one in five homeowners check a builder's trading history or financial stability before hiring — not because people don't care, but because nobody's ever told them how, or where.
That's exactly why we built Build-Check
Build-Check is a free tool that turns those ten questions into something you can actually act on. It walks you through the real checks — Companies House, VAT registration, insurance, CCJs, trade body membership, complaints history — and links you straight to the official source for each one, so you're never just taking someone's word for it.
Answer what you can, and a live score tells you whether a builder looks solid, worth a closer look, or genuinely risky — styled, appropriately, after a spirit level.
If your project is retrofit or energy-efficiency work specifically — insulation, heat pumps, solar — we've also built Retro-Check, which covers the checks that matter for that kind of work and general building checks don't: PAS 2035 coordination, TrustMark and MCS registration, and whether a proper ventilation and condensation risk assessment was done.
We're not claiming to replace your own judgement
To be upfront: Build-Check isn't an official accreditation, and no licensing scheme like this currently exists for UK builders — though the Federation of Master Builders is campaigning for exactly that. What Build-Check gives you is a structured way to ask the right questions, and the confidence that comes from checking the answers yourself, rather than trusting a badge or a five-star average alone.
Low consumer confidence in this industry isn't going to be fixed by one tool. But it starts with homeowners being able to ask better questions — and actually knowing where to find the answers.
Both tools are free, take about ten minutes, and nothing you enter is saved unless you choose to print or save it yourself.
