How many Google reviews do builders have?
Real counts from builders with premises in 33 UK towns, measured rather than asserted. Updated September 2026.
Quick answer
Half of the 527 builders with premises across 33 UK towns have fewer than 10 Google reviews, half have more - 10 is the typical count - checked September 2026.
16 puts a builder ahead of two in three of them (the top third); 40 ahead of nine in ten (the top 10%). Town by town the middle runs from 5 (Shrewsbury) to 28 (Bolton) — a 6-fold difference in what "enough" means.
Source: 527 public Google Business Profile listings for builders with a street address, across 33 UK towns, read September 2026. Service-area listings with no address are excluded. No business is named on this page.
Builders, town by town
22 towns with a published figure, lowest first. A figure is published only where at least 15 builders with premises were checked within the last 120 days. “+5 passes” is how many local competitors a builder sitting at the town's middle would overtake with five more reviews. Each town links to its own view of the tool, where you can place your listing against it.
| Town | Builders with premises | Middle | Top third from | +5 passes | Tool view |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shrewsbury | 27 | 5 | 8 | 8 | View |
| Wakefield† | 15 | 6 | 8 | 7 | View |
| Carlisle† | 16 | 7 | 11 | 4 | View |
| Taunton | 17 | 7 | 12 | 4 | View |
| Worcester† | 16 | 7 | 10 | 3 | View |
| Exeter | 22 | 9 | 11 | 6 | View |
| Mansfield† | 16 | 9 | 14 | 3 | View |
| Chelmsford | 18 | 10 | 15 | 2 | View |
| Lincoln | 25 | 10 | 12 | 7 | View |
| Norwich | 23 | 10 | 17 | 5 | View |
| Preston | 17 | 10 | 13 | 4 | View |
| Southampton | 18 | 10 | 14 | 5 | View |
| Basingstoke | 18 | 13 | 18 | 2 | View |
| Nottingham | 23 | 13 | 18 | 4 | View |
| Swindon | 20 | 13 | 16 | 5 | View |
| Cardiff | 18 | 14 | 17 | 3 | View |
| Leeds | 29 | 14 | 25 | 3 | View |
| Bristol | 19 | 17 | 25 | 3 | View |
| Wolverhampton | 18 | 18 | 19 | 4 | View |
| Gloucester | 21 | 19 | 21 | 6 | View |
| Glasgow | 18 | 24 | 27 | 3 | View |
| Bolton† | 15 | 28 | 37 | 1 | View |
† At or within one of the 15-business floor (Wakefield 15, Carlisle 16, Worcester 16, Mansfield 16, Bolton 15). These figures are true for the businesses we hold but rest on the fewest of them, so one listing opening or closing can move the middle; they are the most likely to be withdrawn at the next refresh.
We also hold builders in Sunderland (14), Harrogate (13), Lowestoft (13), Aberdeen (12), Darlington (12), Guildford (12), Peterborough (11), Paisley (7), Doncaster (2), Aylesbury (1), Bicester (1) — but not the 15 businesses with premises we need before publishing a figure, so those towns get none.
What the spread means
A builder in Bolton needs 28 reviews to sit in the middle of the town; one in Shrewsbury needs 5. The same trade, the same country, and the number that means "average" is 6 times larger at one end than the other. Of the 22 towns, 20 have a middle under 20 and 0 have one of 50 or more; the town in the middle of the list is Southampton at 10. So a national rule of thumb - "get to 30", "aim for 50" - is right in some towns and wrong by a wide margin in others, in both directions.
Where the middle is bunched, a few reviews move a listing a long way: in Shrewsbury a builder at the middle (5) passes 8 competitors with five more; in Bolton the same five pass 1, because its 15 builders are spread from 16 to 62 across the middle half. The tightest market is Wakefield, where half the builders sit between 4 and 8 reviews.
Questions builders ask
- How many Google reviews does a builder need?
- Enough to be ahead of the builders a customer sees next to you, which depends on the town. Across the 527 builders with premises we hold, half have fewer than 10; in Shrewsbury the middle is 5, in Bolton it is 28. The table above gives your town's figure where we hold one.
- Which town's builders have the most Google reviews?
- Of the 22 towns with a published figure, Bolton: half its 15 builders with premises have 28 or more (checked September 2026). The lowest is Shrewsbury at 5.
- How many more reviews move a builder up in the local results?
- Fewer than most people expect, because the middle of each town is bunched. A builder sitting at the middle with five more reviews passes 1 to 8 competitors depending on the town; the "+5 passes" column gives each town's count.
See where your own listing sits
The review benchmark tool holds every trade and town on this page. Pick your town from the table above, or search for your business and it places your review count against the other builders in your town — free, no sign-up.
Other trades: Plumbers, Electricians, Roofers, Garages, Estate Agents.
Where these numbers come from
For each town we read the public Google Business Profile listings Google returns for “builders [town]” — up to sixty — and keep only businesses with a street address in the town. Service-area listings with no address, suppliers and training providers, listings with fewer than three reviews, and businesses whose Google category is a different trade are all removed before anything is counted. A town is published only when at least 15 businesses survive that, and only while the figures are under 120 days old; a town whose figures go stale is withdrawn rather than shown as current. The trade-wide figure at the top is computed over every builder with premises we hold, including the towns below the floor. We do not name businesses: the median, the spread and the count are the market; the names are not ours to publish.
527 builders across 33 towns, checked September 2026. DriveMoreReviews is a review-request service for UK trades; these figures are published free and may be quoted with a link to this page.
Want to move up the ladder?
Five more reviews moves a builder at the middle past 1 to 8 competitors, depending on the town. DriveMoreReviews texts the customers you already have and sends each one to your Google listing.