UK Homeowner Demand Index 2026
What UK homeowners are actually asking builders for — enquiries started through the BestBuilders quote tool over the last 90 days, by trade, with the most common project types and how ready people are to hire. Counts from real enquiries, aggregated and anonymised; nothing modelled.
Enquiries started in the last 90 days, by trade
Every row is a trade for which at least 50 homeowners started an enquiry. “Completed” means the homeowner finished the questions and submitted contact details. The per-trade cost guides show the full answer breakdowns (property type, job type, size, timing).
| Trade | Enquiries started (90d) | Completed | Most common answer | Ready or definitely hiring |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| House Extension | 2,304 | 136 | Rear extension (51%) | 26% |
| Air Conditioning Installation | 1,142 | 130 | Install completely new A/C equipment (95%) | 31% |
| General Builder | 1,076 | 77 | House extension (13%) | 33% |
| Roofing | 806 | 48 | Install a completely new roof (66%) | 38% |
| Loft Conversion | 527 | 43 | House (75%) | — |
| Bathroom Renovation | 527 | 53 | Family (full bathroom shared by everyone) (74%) | 40% |
| Kitchen Renovation | 513 | 26 | Install new kitchen (57%) | — |
| Painting & Decorating | 494 | 32 | Painting only (57%) | — |
| Driveway | 462 | 40 | Replace an existing driveway (55%) | 33% |
| Boiler Installation | 332 | 28 | Combination (69%) | 41% |
| Solar Installation | 324 | 40 | New solar panel installation (94%) | — |
| Garage Door Installation | 248 | 27 | Single garage (68%) | — |
| Garage Conversion | 199 | 15 | Residential – attached to main property (56%) | 30% |
| Landscaping & Garden Work | 175 | 18 | Medium (61%) | 35% |
| Scaffolding hire | 172 | 17 | 2 (49%) | — |
| Double Glazing | 161 | 11 | Install new glazing (74%) | 54% |
| Skip hire | 117 | 18 | Mixed domestic (38%) | — |
| General Bricklaying | 109 | 4 | — | — |
| Carpentry & Joinery | 106 | 7 | — | — |
| EV Charger Installation | 104 | 12 | Home charging point(s) (94%) | — |
| Heat Pump Installation | 99 | 12 | House (78%) | — |
| Plastering & Drywall Repair | 97 | 1 | House (91%) | — |
| Electrical Work | 97 | 10 | House (68%) | — |
| Gardening | 89 | 2 | — | — |
| Burglar Alarm Installation | 86 | 10 | — | — |
| Plumbing | 86 | 5 | — | — |
| Porch, Patio & Canopy | 78 | 0 | — | — |
| Solar Battery Installation | 64 | 6 | — | — |
| Removal companies | 59 | 11 | 2-3 bed house (55%) | — |
| Building Survey | 58 | 0 | — | — |
| Soundproofing | 57 | 4 | — | — |
Enquiries by region (all trades, last 90 days)
| Region | Completed enquiries | Share | Registered members based there |
|---|---|---|---|
| South East | 170 | 19% | 12 |
| London | 125 | 14% | 4 |
| North West | 87 | 10% | 6 |
| South West | 85 | 10% | 2 |
| East of England | 79 | 9% | 3 |
| West Midlands | 74 | 8% | 11 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 67 | 8% | 3 |
| East Midlands | 62 | 7% | 0 |
| Scotland | 46 | 5% | 2 |
| North East | 36 | 4% | 1 |
| Wales | 33 | 4% | 1 |
| Northern Ireland | 8 | 1% | 1 |
| England | 1 | 0% | 0 |
873 completed enquiries whose postcode we could place in an ONS region (Office for National Statistics Postcode Directory, Open Government Licence). “Registered members” counts businesses with a public BestBuilders profile whose base postcode falls in the region.
Source: BestBuilders quote-tool data, 9 Jul – 7 Oct 2026 (enquiries started UK-wide; trades with fewer than 50 enquiries omitted). “Most common answer” is the top reply to the first job-specific question the tool asks for that trade (hover for the question); “ready or definitely hiring” is the share of homeowners who answered the hiring-intent question that way. Figures update daily.
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What this data is — and isn’t
These are counts of real enquiries started on BestBuilders, UK-wide, in a rolling 90-day window, and the answers those homeowners gave to the quote tool’s own questions. It is a demand signal from one website, not a national survey: trades where we have more pages and calculators (extensions, air conditioning, roofing) will show more enquiries than their share of UK work. Use it for direction — what kind of extension people ask for, how many bedrooms the typical roofing job covers, how many are ready to hire — not for market sizing.
One practical way to use it: find the trade that matches your project in the index, then open its cost guide for the price ranges and the same answer breakdowns at job level. A job type that is common in the index tends to attract quick, competitive quotes; a rarer combination can take a little longer to match locally. The signal shifts with the seasons too — heating and roofing climb through autumn, while extensions and driveways build through spring and summer.
Prices are deliberately not on this page: for costs see the UK home improvement cost index (regional cost model) and the individual cost guides. No personal data is shown or stored on this page; figures are aggregated and refresh automatically.
How we produced these figures
Source: dbo-level counts of quote-tool sessions and single-choice answers on bestbuilders.co.uk for the trailing 90 days, excluding test traffic. A trade appears with 50+ enquiries; a question breakdown appears with 40+ answers; percentages are of homeowners who answered that question. Maintained by the BestBuilders editorial team; last method review September 2026.