Last Updated on May 5, 2026
Most UK tradespeople ask the wrong marketing question.
The question they ask is “how much should I spend on marketing”. The answer they actually need is “what does my marketing have to do for me, and what is the cheapest way to make that happen reliably”.
Get the second one right and the first one becomes obvious. Get the second one wrong and any budget is too much.
This is a practical breakdown of what UK tradespeople in 2026 should actually spend on marketing, where the money should go, and where it almost always gets wasted.
The honest answer in one paragraph
For most UK tradespeople, marketing should cost between 2 and 8 percent of revenue per year, weighted heavily toward Google Business Profile, reviews, a simple website and Google Ads. A solo plumber turning over £80,000 a year can run a full, profitable marketing setup for under £1,500 a year. A growing electrical firm doing £400,000 may sensibly spend £15,000 a year. The number is not what matters. What matters is that every pound has a job, and you can name the job in plain English.
Why “how much should I spend” is the wrong question first
The trades businesses we see waste the most money are not the ones spending too little. They are the ones spending without a clear answer to a basic question.
If you doubled your marketing budget tomorrow, what would happen?
If the honest answer is “more enquiries”, that is fine, but it begs a follow-up. Can you handle more enquiries? Do you know what an enquiry is worth? Do you have a way to follow up the ones that do not book on the first call?
If the honest answer is “I do not know”, then any budget is wasted, because spend without measurement is gambling.
The order is: clarify what the work is worth, then build the cheapest reliable system to bring that work in, then think about budget.
What an average UK tradesperson actually spends
Across the UK trades businesses we work with, the patterns look something like this.
A solo trader doing £60,000 to £100,000 a year typically spends £400 to £1,500 on marketing across the year. Most of that goes on a basic website, a domain and email, sometimes a Checkatrade or similar lead-platform subscription, and occasional small ad spend.
A two to five person firm doing £150,000 to £400,000 typically spends £3,000 to £15,000 a year. The mix shifts toward ongoing Google Ads, branded vehicles, a more substantial website, professional photography of finished jobs, and either an in-house person or a small agency for consistent activity.
An established firm doing £500,000 plus typically spends £15,000 to £50,000 a year. At this stage the spend stops being about getting the next job and starts being about owning a category in a defined area.
These are ballpark numbers. The variation is enormous. A solo plumber in central London with a clear high-end positioning can profitably spend £10,000 a year and double their revenue. A firm in a small town with strong word of mouth can spend almost nothing and stay full.
Where the money actually goes, in priority order
If you only have £500 to spend on marketing this year, here is the order to spend it in.
Google Business Profile. Free to claim and optimise. The most valuable single marketing asset most UK trades businesses own. Spend £0. Spend a few hours.
A simple website. Around £200 to £600 for something professional, mobile-friendly, with services, areas covered, gallery, contact form and Google reviews embedded. Use a UK-based small studio, a freelancer, or a clean DIY platform.
A reviews system. A way to ask every happy customer for a Google review by text immediately after the job. Free if you do it manually, around £20 a month if you use a tool.
Branded paperwork and vehicle. Invoices, quotes, vehicle livery and uniform. Small one-off cost. Pays back as the silent advertising that makes you look real to the customer’s neighbours.
Google Ads for high-intent terms. Once the above are in place, this is where paid marketing earns its money. £300 to £1,000 a month targeted at “boiler repair near me”, “emergency electrician”, “drainage near me” and similar high-intent keywords in your area.
Local Services Ads. Where eligible, often the cheapest paid acquisition for trades. Pay-per-lead pricing, with Google’s verification badge attached.
If you are doing all of the above well, only then is it worth thinking about the next layer (van wraps, sponsorships, content marketing, social media, email).
Where the money usually gets wasted
The most common ways UK tradespeople waste marketing money are not surprising, but they are stubborn.
Lead-generation websites that share leads with five other tradespeople. They have a place when you are starting and have nothing else, but they are not a long-term acquisition strategy. You are renting visibility, paying per lead, and competing on price every time.
Generalist agencies on monthly retainers with no clear deliverables. £600 to £2,000 a month with a vague promise of “marketing support” and a quarterly call. If you cannot describe what you got for the money in a sentence, you did not get value.
Boosting Facebook posts. A small spend that occasionally feels like it works. It almost never does. The data is too thin to know.
SEO packages that promise rankings in 30 days. SEO is real and works. Anyone selling guaranteed rankings on a short timeline is not doing real SEO.
Paid directory listings that nobody searches. If you cannot find a directory by Googling normally, your customers cannot either. Drop it.
Beautiful expensive logos before you have any leads coming in. Logos do not bring jobs. A professional but plain logo that took an hour beats a hand-crafted brand identity that took six weeks and £4,000 every time, until you have the cash flow to invest in real brand work.
A simple budget formula for UK tradespeople
You can size your marketing budget honestly with three numbers.
The average value of a job. The percentage of jobs that turn into repeat or referral revenue over the next 12 months. The maximum cost per acquisition you can afford while still hitting your target margin.
If your average job is £400, your repeat plus referral lifetime value is £900, and your target margin requires acquisition costs under £90, you can confidently spend up to £90 to win a new customer through paid channels. If your Google Ads are bringing leads at £30 each and 1 in 4 books, your effective acquisition cost is £120, which is over budget. Either improve conversion or reduce cost per click.
This is the kind of thinking most tradespeople never do. It is also the difference between marketing that compounds and marketing that drains.
What to stop measuring
Vanity metrics are the most expensive thing in trades marketing. Followers, likes, impressions, website visits and ad reach mean nothing on their own.
Three numbers matter:
How many enquiries do you get a month, by source? What does each enquiry cost? How many enquiries turn into booked jobs?
Track those three for a quarter and most of the spending decisions answer themselves. The channels that produce booked jobs at a sensible cost get more. The channels that produce nothing get dropped.
What works for most UK tradespeople in 2026, ranked
If you read nothing else from this article, read this list. Across the UK trades sector in 2026, this is the order of return on effort and money.
- Optimised Google Business Profile.
- Active review collection.
- A simple, fast, mobile-friendly website with services and reviews.
- SMS and email reminders to past customers (annual service, follow-up).
- Targeted Google Ads on high-intent search terms.
- Local Services Ads where eligible.
- Vehicle livery and uniform.
- Word-of-mouth referral system (offer current customers a small reward for a successful referral).
- Local social media presence (visual, not chatty).
- Lead-generation platforms (Checkatrade, MyBuilder, Rated People), used carefully and short-term.
If you do the first four well, you will out-market most local competition without spending much money at all.
What the next 12 months should look like
A practical year for a UK trades business that wants to fix its marketing without overspending looks like this.
Month 1, audit the basics. Google profile, website, reviews, follow-up. Score each honestly out of 10.
Months 2 to 3, fix the worst two. Most businesses gain more from fixing the weakest existing thing than from adding a new initiative.
Months 4 to 6, add one new channel. For most trades, that is paid Google Ads. Start with a budget you can afford to lose, get it producing booked jobs at a sensible cost, then scale.
Months 7 to 12, prune what is not earning, reinvest in what is. Add only one new channel per quarter. Keep tracking your three numbers.
By the end of the year, most UK trades businesses doing this will have a marketing setup that produces predictable enquiries, profitable acquisition costs, and almost no wasted spend.
The single biggest mistake to avoid
The biggest mistake is treating marketing as something you do when work goes quiet.
By the time the diary is empty, it is too late to start. New marketing takes weeks to compound. The businesses that are full are the ones that ran their marketing during the busy months too, even when it felt unnecessary.
Spend small, spend consistently, measure what you spend, and prune ruthlessly.
That is most of what UK trades marketing in 2026 actually requires.
Going deeper
This article sits inside Whito’s broader guidance for trades and home service businesses. If you run a trades firm in the UK and want a fuller view of the channels, common mistakes and Start, Build, Scale roadmap that fits your sector, the Whito guide for trades and home services is the next thing to read.
Or if you would rather see exactly where your own marketing is leaking money, the free Marketing MOT is a 10-minute check that tells you what to fix first.
See how real UK businesses do this well
Our Stolen With Pride series breaks down smart marketing moves from real UK businesses. No theory, just practical ideas you can use. See how Surreal Cereal turned LinkedIn into a free marketing channel, how Bloom & Wild’s email opt-out built more loyalty than any campaign, and more.
