How many Google reviews do plumbers have?
Real counts from plumbers with premises in 35 UK towns, measured rather than asserted. Updated September 2026.
Quick answer
Half of the 822 plumbers with premises across 35 UK towns have fewer than 38 Google reviews, half have more (the median), checked September 2026.
66 puts a plumber ahead of two in three of them (the top third); 174 ahead of nine in ten (the top 10%). Town by town the middle runs from 12 (Bicester) to 87 (Milton Keynes) — a 7-fold difference in what "enough" means.
Source: 822 public Google Business Profile listings for plumbers with a street address, across 35 UK towns, read September 2026. Service-area listings with no address are excluded. No business is named on this page.
Plumbers, town by town
32 towns with a published figure, lowest first. A figure is published only where at least 15 plumbers with premises were checked within the last 120 days. “+5 passes” is how many local competitors a plumber 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 | Plumbers with premises | Middle | Top third from | +5 passes | Cost per click | Tool view |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bicester† | 16 | 12 | 32 | 1 | $8.41 | View |
| Mansfield | 21 | 15 | 25 | 2 | $13.58 | View |
| Carlisle | 21 | 16 | 17 | 4 | $8.52 | View |
| Taunton | 28 | 18 | 26 | 2 | $11.61 | View |
| Wolverhampton | 25 | 18 | 30 | 2 | $13.14 | View |
| Shrewsbury | 26 | 19 | 25 | 4 | $17.38 | View |
| Lincoln | 23 | 21 | 38 | 1 | $11.43 | View |
| Gloucester | 29 | 22 | 38 | 3 | $7.90 | View |
| Darlington | 19 | 24 | 80 | 1 | $20.02 | View |
| Swindon | 35 | 26 | 52 | 2 | $12.15 | View |
| Basingstoke | 29 | 27 | 109 | 2 | $17.72 | View |
| Guildford | 17 | 28 | 67 | 1 | $24.99 | View |
| Chelmsford | 25 | 31 | 57 | 1 | $19.07 | View |
| High Wycombe | 28 | 32 | 50 | 2 | — | View |
| Worcester | 24 | 32 | 39 | 1 | $15.39 | View |
| Wakefield | 20 | 36 | 54 | 3 | $19.47 | View |
| Doncaster | 22 | 37 | 79 | 2 | $5.81 | View |
| Preston | 20 | 37 | 61 | 1 | $12.72 | View |
| Exeter | 22 | 44 | 60 | 1 | $16.48 | View |
| Sunderland | 24 | 45 | 68 | 1 | $14.95 | View |
| Bolton | 20 | 49 | 82 | 0 | $13.32 | View |
| Peterborough | 23 | 49 | 67 | 3 | $8.82 | View |
| Norwich | 30 | 57 | 76 | 1 | $17.21 | View |
| Southampton | 33 | 57 | 63 | 4 | $24.06 | View |
| Glasgow† | 16 | 61 | 78 | 0 | $16.26 | View |
| Aberdeen | 22 | 66 | 96 | 1 | $10.36 | View |
| Leeds | 34 | 71 | 101 | 2 | $17.57 | View |
| Nottingham | 34 | 73 | 89 | 3 | $9.75 | View |
| Aylesbury | 19 | 78 | 133 | 2 | $14.17 | View |
| Bristol | 39 | 82 | 106 | 1 | $21.10 | View |
| Cardiff | 17 | 85 | 168 | 2 | $14.09 | View |
| Milton Keynes | 23 | 87 | 139 | 1 | $15.68 | View |
† At or within one of the 15-business floor (Bicester 16, Glasgow 16). 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 plumbers in Paisley (14), Harrogate (13), Lowestoft (11) — but not the 15 businesses with premises we need before publishing a figure, so those towns get none.
What the spread means
A plumber in Milton Keynes needs 87 reviews to sit in the middle of the town; one in Bicester needs 12 (from 16 businesses, at the floor). The same trade, the same country, and the number that means "average" is 7 times larger at one end than the other. Of the 32 towns, 6 have a middle under 20 and 10 have one of 50 or more; the town in the middle of the list is Doncaster at 37. 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 Carlisle a plumber at the middle (16) passes 4 competitors with five more; in Glasgow the same five pass 0, because its 16 plumbers are spread from 26 to 82 across the middle half. The tightest market is Mansfield, where half the plumbers sit between 11 and 30 reviews.
What a click costs, against what an ask costs
The “cost per click” column is what Google Ads charges a plumber for one click on a search like “emergency plumber [town]”, as reported by DataForSEO Labs keyword_overview for Google Ads UK, retrieved 21 September 2026 to 22 September 2026 (in US dollars, as DataForSEO reports it). Across the 31 towns with a figure the middle is $14.17 a click; the dearest is Guildford at $24.99. Where the emergency term is not in DataForSEO's database, the plain “plumber [town]” term is shown and marked.
Asking a customer you have already done a job for to leave a review costs 19p through DriveMoreReviews on the entry plan (£19 a month for up to 100 customers). One click bought, or about 59 customers asked, at the middle rate (taking $1 as 79p) — and the click is gone when the visitor leaves, while a review stays on the listing. That is the contrast, not a promise about how many of those asks turn into reviews.
Questions plumbers ask
- How many Google reviews does a plumber need?
- Enough to be ahead of the plumbers a customer sees next to you, which depends on the town. Across the 822 plumbers with premises we hold, half have fewer than 38; in Bicester the middle is 12, in Milton Keynes it is 87. The table above gives your town's figure where we hold one.
- Which town's plumbers have the most Google reviews?
- Of the 32 towns with a published figure, Milton Keynes: half its 23 plumbers with premises have 87 or more (checked September 2026). The lowest is Bicester at 12, from 16 businesses, right at our publishing floor.
- How many more reviews move a plumber up in the local results?
- Fewer than most people expect, because the middle of each town is bunched. A plumber sitting at the middle with five more reviews passes 0 to 4 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 plumbers in your town — free, no sign-up.
Other trades: Electricians, Roofers.
Where these numbers come from
For each town we read the public Google Business Profile listings Google returns for “plumbers [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 plumber 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.
822 plumbers across 35 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 plumber at the middle past 0 to 4 competitors, depending on the town. DriveMoreReviews texts the customers you already have and sends each one to your Google listing.