Original research from the Companies House register, July 2026. Method at the bottom, every number checkable.
The numbers
There are 60,553 active electrical installation companies on the UK register. 12,041 have incorporated since January 2025, about 719 a month through 2026. Credit where due: sparkies survive better than most trades we have analysed, with 16.6% of the January 2025 intake dissolved within 18 months against 19 to 24 percent elsewhere. Better. Still one in six, gone.
The badge is a pass mark, not a marketing plan
Electrical work is rightly a certified trade, and most electricians treat the badge as the marketing: get registered, get listed in the scheme directory, wait for the phone. Here is the problem the register exposes: every one of those 719 new monthly competitors can hold the same badge. Certification is the entry ticket. It proves you are safe. It does not decide who gets found.
What decides who gets found is the same as every trade now: local search, reviews, and increasingly the AI assistants people ask directly. Those systems do not rank by qualification, they rank by what they can read: a real website stating who you are, what you do, where you work, with proof attached. A scheme-directory listing is a line in someone else’s database, shared with every qualified rival in your postcode.
What the survivors do
The electrical firms that get past the cliff pair the badge with somewhere they own: a site that says domestic or commercial, the postcodes covered, the certifications held, real jobs photographed, and a same-day way to reach them. Qualification gets you considered. Findability gets you called first.
Method, so you can check it
Counts pulled live from the Companies House register (Advanced Search API) on 12 July 2026 for SIC 43210, electrical installation. Public data; verify any figure yourself. Corrections: hello@modemarketing.co.uk.
Where Mode fits, stated plainly
Fixed-price websites for trades, prices published, no sales calls: one page for £249, five pages for £495 live in five working days, or £99 a month built and hosted. You own everything. Quick Site · Website Subscription · all prices.
