Marc Yau

TradesAround is a directory of vetted UK tradespeople, starting with Oxfordshire. It connects homeowners with local plumbers, electricians, builders, gas engineers and the rest — 25 trade categories in total — through an AI-powered Verified Assessment system that scores each listing automatically against public data. That system pulls signals from Companies House, Gas Safe, NICEIC, FENSA and similar registers, layers in sentiment analysis on real reviews, and surfaces a transparency-of-claims score showing how well a tradesperson's own marketing matches the verifiable facts. We don't grant trust — we surface it. The problem this is meant to fix is familiar. Big national directories either sell each enquiry as a lead to whichever trade pays most, or charge a flat annual fee for a "trusted trader" badge whose meaning is unclear. Homeowners can't tell who's actually qualified. Sole-trader tradespeople either pay for badges they don't trust or bid against competitors for the same job. TradesAround takes a different approach. Profile claims are free for tradespeople, and stay free. We don't charge per lead. We don't sell rankings. Verification runs automatically and continuously, not as a one-off paid certificate. We're starting in Oxfordshire because local trust requires local density. A directory with three plumbers in Witney isn't useful; it's a list. The first twelve weeks are about getting profiles claimed, building out category and town pages, and listening to what people actually need. The site is at tradesaround.com. Tradespeople in Oxfordshire can claim profiles now; homeowners can search by trade and town.