For years, the searches around home improvement jobs have mostly been about cost. “Loft conversion cost”, “house extension cost”, “how much does a heat pump cost”. That has not gone away. But across seven separate trades this year, a second kind of search has started rising much faster than the cost ones ever did, and it asks a completely different question.
Not “what would this cost me”. “Who do I hire”.
The shift, in the searches themselves
Look at what is rising fastest around loft conversions, house extensions and heat pumps in the UK right now, and the pattern is hard to miss. “Loft conversion company near me” is up 150% over the past twelve months. “Air source heat pump installer” is up 140%. “Loft conversion specialists” and “house extension company” are both up 90%. “Loft conversion builders near me” is up 60%.
Two more queries in the same group, “air source heat pump installers cost” and “local seo for plumbers”, have gone from barely registering to a Google Trends breakout, which means the rise is too steep to express as a percentage against last year’s near zero base.
Seven seeds all moving the same way is not noise. It is homeowners who have already decided to do the job, now working out who does it. That decision point, the moment between “I am doing this” and “I am doing this with you”, is exactly where builders near me searches happen, and exactly where a trades business either shows up or does not.
Why the moment matters more than the click
A cost search happens early. Someone is still deciding whether to go ahead at all, and they might not for months. A hiring search happens late, often within days of a job being booked. The person typing “loft conversion company near me” has stopped comparing prices in the abstract and started looking at who is actually available, nearby, and doing that kind of work well.
That is a much smaller window, and a much more valuable one. Whoever is visible in it does not need to convince the homeowner that the job is worth doing. That decision is already made. They only need to be found.
The Federation of Master Builders’ State of Trade survey for the second half of 2025 puts a number on why this matters right now: workloads across SME builders remain strong, but enquiry levels have eased. The jobs have not disappeared. The volume of people asking about them has thinned. When there are fewer moments like this one, missing the ones that do happen costs more than it used to.
Where those searches land today
Type “loft conversion company near me” into Google and a fair share of the results are not builders at all. They are directories such as Checkatrade, sitting between the homeowner and the actual firm doing the work, charging for the introduction either way. That is not a criticism of the platform; it exists because somebody has to be there when the homeowner searches, and for a lot of local trades, nobody else is.
A business with its own visibility in that moment, through its Google Business Profile and through search advertising built around exactly these hiring phrases, keeps that enquiry direct rather than paying a directory to pass it on. The gap those seven rising searches are pointing at is not that homeowners have stopped looking for builders. It is that too few builders are where the search is when it happens.
Being there when it happens
Catching this moment is two things done together, not one thing done well. A Google Business Profile that is current, with the right service areas and real photos, is what a homeowner checks in the seconds after they see your name. Search advertising built around the specific hiring phrases above, rather than the broader cost phrases most campaigns default to, is what gets your name in front of them in the first place. Run separately, either one is weaker. Run together, the ad puts you in the search and the profile gives the homeowner a reason to trust what they just found.
What we do with it
We build search campaigns around the phrases homeowners actually use at the point of hiring, not the generic cost terms every competitor is already bidding on, and we set up the Google Business Profile that has to hold up once that ad gets a click. If you are running any paid search or social activity already and cannot say which of your campaigns are catching this hiring moment specifically, that is worth a conversation.
Talk to us about lead generation for trades and construction, or see how it fits with social advertising for builders.
Get in touch and we will show you what is rising in your specific trade.