This is written for someone who works on roofs, not someone who works in marketing. Nothing in it needs buying. The order matters more than the effort: most roofers do the hard bits, skip the free bits, then pay a platform to make up the difference.
What changed since the July 2026 version of this page. The earlier version said a won job from a lead platform really costs £400 to £900, because each lead is sold to three to five roofers. Those numbers came from marketing blogs, not from the platforms, and in September 2026 we could not stand any of them up, so they have gone. What the platforms do publish is below, and it is thinner than the internet pretends. The old day rates (£150 to £300) were stale too, and are replaced below.
What is one roofing job actually worth?
A full roof replacement averages £8,000, on a published range of £4,000 to £19,000, or £120 to £275 per square metre. That is Checkatrade’s roof replacement cost guide as updated in June 2026. The same guide gives £9,250 to £18,000 for a hip roof and £7,000 to £16,250 for a gable, plus scaffolding at £700 to £1,300 and stripping the old roof at £1,000 to £2,500.
Hold that against what being findable costs: an evening a week for a couple of months. One re-roof found by a homeowner who searched and chose you pays for every hour of it many times over, and the pages stay up.
| Job | Published UK figure | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Full roof replacement | £8,000 average; £4,000–£19,000; £120–£275 per m² | Checkatrade, updated June 2026 |
| Flat roof replacement | £2,800–£7,500; average £75 per m² | Checkatrade, updated February 2026 |
| Roof repair | £110–£160 per m² | Checkatrade, updated June 2026 |
| Lead flashing | £50–£70 per m (£80–£120 stepped) | Checkatrade, updated June 2026 |
| Ridge / dry ridge | £50–£70 per m | Checkatrade, updated June 2026 |
| Roofer labour | £35–£45 an hour; £280–£360 a day | Checkatrade, updated June 2026 |
| Scaffolding | £700–£1,300 (replacement guide); around £625 a week (repair guide) | Checkatrade, updated June 2026 |
What do homeowners actually type when they need a roofer?
Not “roofing services”. They type the specific thing that has gone wrong, usually on a phone, usually in a hurry. Running Google UK autocomplete on 15 September 2026 across sixteen seed phrases, these are the returns that kept coming back — and none is the language a roofing website normally uses:
- The urgent ones. “emergency roof repair near me”, “emergency roof repair open now”, “urgent roof repair near me”, “same day emergency roof repair”, “emergency roof repair in rain”.
- The money ones. “how much does a new roof cost uk”, “roof replacement cost uk terraced house”, “how much does a new roof cost uk 3 bed semi”, “roof repair cost uk”, “garage flat roof replacement cost uk”, “how much do roofers charge per day uk”.
- The specific-job ones. “flat roof felt replacement cost uk”, “dormer flat roof replacement cost uk”, “roof valley repair cost uk”, “slate roof repair cost uk”, “sagging roof repair cost uk”, “roof tile repair cost uk”.
- The choosing ones. “roofers near me”, “reputable roofers near me”, “how do i find a reliable roofer in my area”, “how to choose a roofer”, “nfrc roofers near me”.
- The insurance ones. “storm damage roof insurance claim”, “does home insurance cover storm damage to roof”, “what is considered storm damage to roof”.
Notice what is missing: nobody searches your company name, and nobody searches “roofing solutions”. They search a problem, a price or a place. The rest of this guide is just the work of having a page that matches one of those and says where you work.
The other half of the list. Roofers search too: “how to get more roofing jobs”, “how to get roofing leads for free”, “how to get roofing leads without door knocking”. Almost everything those return is somebody selling leads or selling marketing — which is the gap you can walk into in your own town.
Why one “Services” page loses you work
Because a homeowner searching “flat roof felt replacement cost uk” is not looking for a roofer, they are looking for that job — and a page headed “Services” listing eleven things in bullet points matches nothing in particular. Search engines and AI assistants both want the page that is clearly about the thing asked.
So split it. One page per job, each a proper page rather than a paragraph:
- Roof repairs and leaks
- Full roof replacement / re-roofing
- Flat roofs, split by material: felt, EPDM rubber, GRP fibreglass
- Garage and extension flat roofs (searched constantly and almost never written about)
- Chimney work, lead flashing and valleys
- Fascias, soffits and guttering
- Slate and tile work
- Storm damage and insurance work
Each page wants six things: what the job is, when a house needs it, what it involves, roughly what it costs, photographs of one you have done, and how to reach you. Writing a service page that gets found covers the layout, and writing about your services covers getting the words right when you would rather be on a roof.
Name the towns you cover, in ordinary words
If the towns you work in are not written anywhere on your website, nothing can tell that you work there. This is the single most common gap on a roofing site: a map graphic, a phrase like “covering the local area and surrounding villages”, and not one town named in text. A map image is not readable as words, and “surrounding villages” matches nothing anyone types.
Write them out, in sentences, on the relevant pages — and for the four or five towns that actually bring you work, on a page of their own with something genuinely local on it: the housing stock, the common roof type, a job you did there with photographs. A thin page that only swaps the town name is what search engines have got good at ignoring. How to create location pages that get found covers where the line sits.
Your Google Business Profile is the free bit that decides the call
It costs £0, permanently. Google’s help page puts it in one line — “You can add or claim your business at no charge” — still the wording on 15 September 2026. No trial, no premium tier, no renewal. Anyone ringing to take payment to verify or renew your listing is not Google.
It matters because of where it appears. For “roofers near me”, the block of local businesses with the little map sits above the ordinary results, and it is fed by Business Profiles, not websites. A roofer with no profile, or one claimed years ago and never filled in, can be invisible in their own town however good the website is.
What to put in it, in order of how much difference it makes:
- Every service, listed individually — flat roofs, chimney flashing, guttering — not one entry saying “roofing”.
- Photographs of your own work. Before and after, real houses, this country. Stock photographs of American shingle roofs are instantly recognisable and cost you trust.
- Your service area, set properly, matching the towns named on the website.
- Opening hours that are true, including whether you answer out of hours. See the storm section below.
- A new photo every month. You finish jobs every week; take one picture before you pack up.
If it is not claimed yet, how to set up a Google Business Profile walks through it, and what one costs covers what people try to charge you.
Make reviews a routine, not a hope
Roofing is, on the published evidence, the trade homeowners trust least — which is why reviews decide the job. Reporting Checkatrade’s UK Home Improvement Index on 4 February 2025, Homebuilding & Renovating said roofing had overtaken building as the least trustworthy trade, that UK homeowners lose an estimated £1.4 billion a year to rogue traders, and that 2,365 roofers were declined by Checkatrade in 2024, nearly double the 1,219 the year before.
If you are one of the honest majority, that is maddening. It is also your opening: the homeowner arrives braced for a con, running a checklist, and every item they can tick on your page is a competitor they stop considering.
The routine takes two minutes a job. Get the short review link from your Google profile, save it in your phone, and text it the day you finish — not a week later, when the relief has worn off. Ask for what you want mentioned, the town and the job: “a line about the flat roof in Botley would really help me.” Then reply to every review, including the bad one.
Show the rest of what a nervous homeowner checks: public liability insurance, a written guarantee, and an accreditation that is verifiable. The NFRC is the UK’s largest roofing trade association, with over 1,350 members. CompetentRoofer is a government-licensed competent person scheme letting members self-certify roof work against Building Regulations, with a ten-year insurance-backed guarantee on work up to £50,000 on buildings of four storeys or fewer. Neither publishes its fee.
Answer the cost question in public
This is the one that wins the search, and almost no roofing website does it. Look back at the list: “how much does a new roof cost uk”, “roof repair cost uk”, “how much do roofers charge per day uk”. People search the price far more than they search for a roofer, and they search it first.
You do not need a price list and should not publish one. You need ranges, and the reasons a job lands at one end or the other: access, scaffolding, pitch, the state of the battens, whether it is slate. Only a roofer can write that, which is why it ranks, and why an AI assistant asked what a new roof costs has something of yours to quote.
It does a second job too: the homeowner who reads it and rings anyway has already accepted the number. How to write a helpful guide for your website covers the shape of the page, and getting your business into ChatGPT covers why written answers get you quoted in AI results.
Use real figures, including other people’s. If a homeowner has read that the UK average re-roof is £8,000, your page saying “every job is different, call for a quote” loses to the one saying “most semis in this town come in between X and Y, and here is why”. Say where your numbers come from and when you checked them.
Storms, leaks, and being answerable at 8pm
The urgent searches are a separate business, and they run on a calendar. The Met Office’s storm naming season runs from early September to late August, and the 2026/27 list opens with Austen, Boelo and Chloe — twenty-one names, compiled with Met Éireann and KNMI. Every named storm crossing your patch produces a wave of “emergency roof repair near me” that same evening.
Two things decide who gets those jobs, and neither is a redesign.
The first is whether your site says you do emergency work at all, in those words, on its own page. “Emergency roof repair” and “storm damage” are what people type; “24/7 reactive maintenance” is not. Say what you will actually do that night — make safe, sheet up, come back in daylight — because someone with water coming through a ceiling wants to know about the next two hours, not next week.
The second is whether anyone answers. A tappable phone number on every page, with someone at the end of it, beats a contact form at 8pm in the rain. If you genuinely cannot answer after six, say so and give a time you will — that loses fewer jobs than silence, because they are already dialling the next name.
Write the insurance page too. “Does home insurance cover storm damage to roof” is asked before anyone rings a roofer, and the roofer who explains what insurers want — photographs, a dated report, the make-safe receipt — is the one they ring.
Should you buy roofing leads at all?
Sometimes — but do the sum with published numbers, because most UK lead-cost figures online come from nobody and cannot be checked. Here is what the platforms themselves state, checked on 15 September 2026.
| Platform | What it publishes | Commitment |
|---|---|---|
| MyBuilder | “There are no joining or membership fees.” Shortlist fees “typically range from £2 to £35 depending on the size of the job”, payable when the homeowner shortlists you and contact details are exchanged | None — pay as you go |
| Rated People | No price published. States “no more than 3 tradespeople can buy the same lead”; the Unlimited plan is priced by phone on your trade and area | Monthly subscription |
| Checkatrade | No price list. Monthly cost built from your trade, your postcodes and the annual lead volume you choose. Sponsored listings from £100 a month. An Application Fee of £250 excluding VAT is defined in its Master Service Terms | 12-month plan, renews automatically |
| Which? Trusted Traders | Published in full: £248 including VAT assessment for a business with 0–3 people, then £66 a month or £797 a year | No minimum term published |
| Bark | No price published. Credits bought in packs; the cost of contacting a customer is calculated from the service, the job value and local supply and demand. Credits expire three months after purchase | None — no contract |
The only honest arithmetic there is MyBuilder’s, because MyBuilder publishes a number. At the top of its range, £35 a shortlist, winning one job in three costs around £105 per job won. Against an £8,000 re-roof that is nothing. Against a £300 tile repair it is a third of the margin.
That is the cheap, transparent end. Nobody publishes the expensive end, which is the real finding here. So you cannot compare a Checkatrade quote with anything until you have it in writing — and when you get it, insist the annual lead allowance appears in the same document as the monthly figure, because a fee without a lead count tells you nothing. What Checkatrade costs goes through the contract and the 35-day cancellation window.
The structural point is simpler than the arithmetic. A lead is rented and, on Rated People’s published terms, shared with up to two other roofers. A page of yours that ranks is owned, shared with nobody, and still there in three years.
What to do first, in order
Six evenings, none of which costs anything. Do them in this order, because each makes the next work better.
- Evening one. Search “roofer” plus your town in a private browsing window, so Google does not flatter you with your own history. Write down who is above you and what their pages have.
- Evening two. Claim and fill in the Google Business Profile. Every service listed separately, service area set, hours true, ten photographs of your own jobs.
- Evening three. Write out the towns you cover in ordinary sentences on the website, and delete the phrase “and surrounding areas”.
- Evening four. Split the Services page. Start with the two jobs you most want more of, not all eight.
- Evening five. Write the cost page for one of those two, with real ranges and the reasons a job moves within them.
- Evening six. Set up the review routine: link in your phone, message drafted, sent the day you finish. Then check your number is tappable on every page and your contact form actually arrives.
If the phone is already quiet, why isn’t my website showing on Google and why isn’t my website getting enquiries are the two diagnoses, and they point in opposite directions.
Common questions
- How do I get more roofing jobs?
- Be the roofer who turns up when someone nearby searches for the job they actually have. That means a separate page for each thing you do — flat roof replacement, slipped tiles, chimney flashing, guttering — with the towns you cover written out in ordinary sentences, a Google Business Profile filled in with photos of your own work, and reviews arriving steadily rather than once a year. None of it costs money. It costs evenings, and it keeps working after you stop paying for leads.
- How do I get roofing leads for free?
- The free channels are your own website and your Google Business Profile, and the profile genuinely is free: Google’s help page says you can add or claim your business at no charge, checked 15 September 2026. Fill it in completely, add real photos every month, and point it at a website with a page for each roofing job you do. Then answer the cost question in public, because roof repair cost and new roof cost are among the most-searched roofing phrases in the UK.
- How do I get roofing leads without door knocking?
- By being findable at the moment the homeowner goes looking, which is almost always a phone search after something has gone wrong. Door knocking puts you in front of people who were not thinking about their roof; search puts you in front of people who are. The work is unglamorous: one page per service, your towns named, a complete Google Business Profile, a review routine, and a tappable phone number on every page. It compounds, which knocking does not.
- How much do roofers charge per day in the UK?
- Checkatrade’s roof repair cost guide, updated June 2026, gives a roofer day rate of £280 to £360 and an hourly rate of £35 to £45. Those are national figures and London runs higher. If your own day rate sits well below that range, the useful question is not whether to raise it but whether the enquiries you are getting are price-shoppers who found you on a lead platform alongside two other quotes, or people who chose you.
- How much does a new roof cost in the UK?
- Checkatrade’s roof replacement cost guide, updated June 2026, puts the UK average at £8,000, with a range of £4,000 to £19,000 and £120 to £275 per square metre. It gives £9,250 to £18,000 for a hip roof and £7,000 to £16,250 for a gable roof, with scaffolding £700 to £1,300 and removal of the old roof £1,000 to £2,500 on top. Publishing your own version of that spread on your site is what catches the searches.
- How much does emergency roof repair cost?
- We could not find a published UK figure for emergency or out-of-hours roof repair specifically, and we will not invent one. What is published is the ordinary rate: Checkatrade’s June 2026 guide gives £110 to £160 per square metre for repairs, £50 to £70 per metre for lead flashing, and a day rate of £280 to £360. If you charge a call-out premium for storm work, say so plainly — homeowners ringing at 8pm are bracing for a surprise.
- How much does a flat roof cost per m2 in the UK?
- Checkatrade’s flat roof replacement guide, updated February 2026, gives an average of £75 per square metre and a whole-roof range of £2,800 to £7,500. By material it lists felt at £50 to £80, asphalt at £50 to £70, EPDM rubber at £80 to £100, GRP fibreglass at £95 to £120 and a green roof at £75 to £110 per square metre. Garage and extension flat roofs are among the most searched roofing phrases there are, and they deserve their own page.
- How do I find a reliable roofer in my area?
- This is what your customers type, so it is worth knowing what they are told to look for: independent reviews with real names, proof of public liability insurance, a written guarantee, membership of something verifiable such as the NFRC or CompetentRoofer, and photographs of the roofer’s own finished jobs rather than stock images. If your website shows none of that, you are failing a check the homeowner is actively running.
Related guides
Sources, all checked 15 September 2026. Job values and labour rates: Checkatrade cost guides — Roof Replacement Cost and Roof Repair Costs (both updated June 2026) and Flat Roof Replacement Costs (February 2026). Google Business Profile cost: Google Business Profile Help, “You can add or claim your business at no charge”. Lead platform terms: MyBuilder trade registration page; Rated People tradespeople page (“no more than 3 tradespeople can buy the same lead”); Checkatrade join site and Master Service Terms; Which? Trusted Traders published fee table; Bark seller terms on credits and three-month expiry. Trust and rogue traders: Homebuilding & Renovating, 4 February 2025, reporting Checkatrade’s UK Home Improvement Index. Accreditations: NFRC and CompetentRoofer’s own websites; neither publishes a membership fee. Storm season: Met Office UK Storm Centre, 2026/27 name list. Search phrasings: Google UK autocomplete, 608 queries across 16 seed phrases, 15 September 2026. Could not be established: what a roofing lead costs on Checkatrade, Bark or Rated People, since none publishes a figure; how many roofers one Checkatrade or Bark lead is sold to, since neither publishes it (only Rated People does); and any UK price for emergency or out-of-hours roof repair. The previous version of this page carried £400 to £900 per won job and a “sold to three to five roofers” claim we could not trace to any platform; both are removed rather than restated.