How we verify trades — and why we ban fake reviews.
Directories are easy to fake. So here is the whole process, including the bits that don't flatter us: what we check, what the badges do and don't mean, and why a review here can only exist if a real job happened first.
What actually happens when a trade claims a credential
Anyone can put a logo on a website. The point of a check is that somebody goes to the source. Here's ours, start to finish.
- 01
The tradesperson submits it — and nothing shows yet
From their dashboard they add the credential type, the registration number, and, where there's a certificate, an upload of it. At this point it's marked
pending_reviewand is invisible to the public. There is deliberately no “verification in progress” badge — that would be a badge for doing nothing. - 02
Companies House is checked automatically
A company number goes straight to the official Companies House API. The company has to exist and be active; a dissolved company, a number that doesn't exist, or a made-up format is rejected outright, with no human in the loop to sweet-talk. If the API can't answer, the credential stays pending rather than being waved through.
- 03
Everything else is checked by a person, against the register
For the trade bodies, a reviewer opens the uploaded evidence and cross-checks the registration against that body's own public register — the same search you could run yourself. Then it's approved or rejected. If there's no public register to check against and no document uploaded, it isn't approved: we go back and ask for evidence.
- 04
Only confirmed credentials ever appear
A public profile shows credentials with a status of
verifiedand nothing else. Pending and rejected ones are not shown, not greyed out, not hinted at. And where the tradesperson gave us a registration number, we print it on the profile — so you can re-run the exact same check yourself.
The registers we check against
These are public. We've linked each one so you never have to take our word for it — checking a number yourself takes about a minute, and it's a minute well spent before you let someone into your home.
Gas Safe Register
GreenThe official gas registration body for the UK. By law, anyone working on gas appliances must be on it.
Check an engineer ↗NICEIC
GreenOne of the UK's main electrical contractor assessment schemes, including Part P competent-person registration.
Find a contractor ↗NAPIT
GreenA competent-person scheme covering electrical, heating, plumbing and other building work.
Find an installer ↗TrustMark
GreenThe government-endorsed quality scheme for work carried out in and around the home.
Search firms ↗Federation of Master Builders
AmberThe long-standing trade association for UK builders, with its own public find-a-builder directory.
Find a builder ↗Companies House
AmberThe official register of UK companies. This one is checked automatically against the Companies House API — the company has to exist and be active.
Search the register ↗Public liability insurance and other credentials can also be submitted. They have no central public register, so they're confirmed from the document itself and carry the standard stamp.
Green stamp vs standard stamp
Not every credential is backed by the same kind of evidence, so we don't print them as if they are. Two stamps, two meanings.
Register-verified
Cross-checked against a public safety or competence register that anyone can search. Used for four credentials: Gas Safe, NICEIC, NAPIT and TrustMark. This is the strongest signal on the site.
Standard verified
Confirmed before it goes live, but not carried by a searchable safety register in the same way — Federation of Master Builders membership, Companies House, public liability insurance and other credentials. Checked, but a different kind of proof.
What Verified does not mean
Every badge on the internet is oversold. Here's where ours stops, in plain English.
- !It isn't “qualified for everything”. The profile badge appears once at least one credential is confirmed. Read the individual stamps and check they cover your job — especially anything legally gated, like gas work.
- !It's a point-in-time check.Registrations lapse. A check tells you a credential was confirmed when we checked it, not that it's live this second. The registration number is on the profile so you can re-check before you book.
- !It's not a guarantee of workmanship.It isn't a warranty, an insurance policy or a promise about how a job will turn out. It tells you who someone is and what they're registered for — not how their last kitchen went.
- !It isn't required to send you a quote. Verification is voluntary, so an unverified tradesperson can still quote. The badge marks who has been checked; it isn't a gate on who's allowed to bid.
- !Some profiles are unclaimed listings.Where a local business hasn't joined yet, a basic listing may exist from public business information so homeowners can still find them. Those are labelled as unclaimed, carry no Verified badge, and we keep them out of search engines rather than pad the directory with them.
Why a fake review can't exist here
Not “we moderate hard”. Moderation is a promise about effort. This is a promise about structure: there is no route into our reviews that doesn't start with a real, completed job.
- ✓Every review is attached to a job. Not to a profile, not to an email address — to a specific job record. A review with no job behind it cannot be stored.
- ✓Only the customer who posted that job can write it, from their own signed-in account. There are no anonymous reviews, and no “leave a review” link a stranger can be sent.
- ✓Only after the job is awarded and marked complete. The customer awards the job to one tradesperson and marks it finished; only then does the review unlock.
- ✓One review per job, ever. Enforced by a uniqueness rule in the database, not by a policy someone has to remember on a busy day.
- ✓Tradespeople can't touch them.There is no feature — and no price — to write, commission, edit, hide or delete a review. Reviews aren't theirs to change.
- ✓The star rating is only ever the real reviews. A profile's rating is recalculated from published reviews tied to completed jobs. Nothing else feeds it.
- ✓Google reviews are kept visibly separate. If a tradesperson links their own Google Business listing, those reviews appear in their own labelled section marked as coming from Google and not verified by us — never folded into the Rank My Builder rating.
The law caught up in 2025 — and that's a good thing
Online reviews have a well-documented trust problem across the whole home-improvement category. That's not a dig at any particular company — it's why the UK now treats it as a legal issue rather than a matter of taste.
Since 6 April 2025, the consumer-protection provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 have made fake reviews and undisclosed incentivised reviews banned practices — automatically unfair. Sites that publish reviews are expected to take reasonable and proportionate steps to stop fake ones appearing, and presenting ratings misleadingly — burying the bad ones, flattering the average — is caught too. The Competition and Markets Authority enforces it directly, with fines of up to 10% of global turnover.
We're not claiming that makes us special. It's the floor now, for everybody. What we'd rather you notice is that our version isn't a moderation team bolted on afterwards to catch fakes — it's that the fake never has a door to come in through.
The honest cost of this: a genuinely good tradesperson who joined last week has no reviews yet, and profiles here will look emptier than on a site that isn't fussy about where reviews come from. We'll take that. A thin true profile beats a fat false one — and you find out which you were reading the first time someone's in your house with the floor up.
We're new. That's the honest bit.
Rank My Builder is a new, independent company, building out area by area — we started in the UK rather than switching on a map of the whole country and hoping somebody turns up. A local search only has trades in it when there are real trades behind it.
You'll notice we haven't told you how many tradespeople, jobs or reviews we have. That's deliberate. Inflated numbers are the first thing a young directory fakes, and once you've done that everything else on the page is worth less. When the numbers are worth quoting, we'll quote them — and you'll be able to check them.
Building trust from day one is easier than retrofitting it, so the rules above are the ones we started with, not ones we'll grow into.
Four things we won't do
- ✕Sell a verification badge, or bundle one into a paid tier. A credential is confirmed against its register or it isn't shown.
- ✕Charge anyone to publish, promote, bury or remove a review.
- ✕Publish a review that isn't tied to a real, completed job.
- ✕Claim scale, coverage or credentials we can't evidence — including on this page.
The things people actually ask
What does the Verified badge on a profile actually mean?+
It means at least one credential on that profile has been confirmed — either automatically against Companies House, or by a person cross-checking the registration number against the relevant public register. It does not mean the tradesperson is qualified for every job. Always look at the individual credential stamps on the profile and check they cover the work you're hiring for.
What's the difference between the green and the amber credential stamps?+
A green register-verified stamp is used for four credentials that can be cross-checked against a public safety or competence register: Gas Safe, NICEIC, NAPIT and TrustMark. Everything else — Federation of Master Builders membership, Companies House, public liability insurance and other credentials — carries the standard amber stamp. Both are checked before they go live; the two colours let you tell at a glance which kind of check sits behind each one.
Do you check every tradesperson before they can quote for my job?+
No, and we'd rather say so. Adding credentials is voluntary and per-credential, so a tradesperson can send you a quote without a Verified badge. The badge tells you who has been checked — it isn't a gate on who is allowed to quote. If a job legally requires a registration, such as Gas Safe for gas work, check for that specific stamp rather than the general Verified badge.
Can a tradesperson pay you for a badge or a better rating?+
No. Verification isn't sold and it isn't part of any paid tier — a credential is either confirmed against its register or it isn't shown. Ratings are calculated from published reviews only, and there is no way to buy, boost or suppress one.
Can a tradesperson write, buy or delete reviews on Rank My Builder?+
No. A review can only be created against a specific job by the signed-in customer who posted that job, and only after the job has been awarded and marked complete. The database allows one review per job and refuses a review with no job behind it. There is no product feature — at any price — for a tradesperson to write, edit, hide or delete a review.
Are the Google reviews shown on some profiles verified by you?+
No. Where a tradesperson has linked their own Google Business listing, we mirror it into a clearly labelled separate section marked as coming from Google and not verified by Rank My Builder. Those reviews are never mixed into the Rank My Builder star rating, which is calculated only from reviews tied to completed jobs on our platform.
How current is a verification check?+
A check confirms a credential at the point it was checked, not at the second you're reading it — registrations can lapse or be withdrawn between checks. That's why we publish the registration number where a tradesperson gives us one: you can re-run the same check on the public register in about a minute before you book. If you find something out of date, tell us and we'll look at it.
How do I report a profile, credential or review that looks wrong?+
Email hello@rankmybuilder.co.uk with a link to the profile and what looks wrong, and we'll investigate it. We'd genuinely rather hear about it than have it sit there — a directory that won't take corrections isn't a directory, it's an advert.
Now go and check us on it
Open any profile and look at the stamps, the registration numbers and where each review came from. If something doesn't stack up, tell us at hello@rankmybuilder.co.uk.