Checkatrade Scraper — UK Tradespeople Data, Reviews & Leads

Extract Checkatrade's UK tradespeople directory — company name, trade, location, rating out of 10, total reviews, phone and the latest review text — straight from live search results. Build UK trades lead lists, run review intelligence and research the home-services market without the official API (which doesn't expose directory data at all).

Main Use Cases

• UK trades lead generation — collect vetted tradespeople (plumbers, electricians, builders, roofers) across UK postcodes and counties into clean lead lists with phone numbers
• Build UK contractor databases — assemble your own directory of tradespeople, complete with profile URLs and 1,500+ trade categories
• Checkatrade review intelligence — track ratings (out of 10), review counts and recent review text per company for reputation and competitor research
• Home services market research — analyse how many vetted tradespeople serve each area and trade, and how they are rated
• CRM lead enrichment — append Checkatrade ratings, review counts and contact data to existing B2B lead pipelines
• Checkatrade API alternative — the official Checkatrade API only creates jobs for affiliates; it never exposes listing, review or phone data. This actor fills that gap from publicly visible search pages.

How It Works

The actor walks Checkatrade's public search pages in the form https://www.checkatrade.com/Search/{trade}/in/{location} — one row per tradesperson per searched trade × location combination. It reads the structured data embedded in each search page (schema.org ld+json ItemList, with a Next.js flight-data fallback), so nothing is parsed from messy HTML fragments.

Checkatrade is protected by Cloudflare, so the actor speaks plain HTTP with a Chrome-impersonating TLS/HTTP2 fingerprint (via Crawlee's Impit client) — no browser instance is needed, which keeps runs fast and the per-result price low. Pagination is followed automatically until maxItems is reached.

Amazon-Style Headline: What You Get

One dataset row per tradesperson with: company name, profile URL, trade, searched location, locality, country, rating (0–10), total reviews, phone, and the most recent review text/author/rating shown on the search page.

Input Parameters

Field	Type	Required	Default	Notes
startUrls	Array<string>	No	–	Direct Checkatrade search URLs (e.g. https://www.checkatrade.com/Search/Plumber/in/Greater-London). Overrides trades + locations.
trades	Array<string>	No	["Plumber"]	Trades to search (e.g. Plumber, Electrician, Builder, Roofer). Each trade is combined with every location.
locations	Array<string>	No	["IG11 8BB"]	UK postcodes or location names (e.g. IG11 8BB, Greater-London, Kent). Each location is combined with every trade.
maxItems	Integer	No	100	Maximum tradespeople to return. 0 = unlimited (bounded only by pagination) — prefer setting a number to control cost.
maxConcurrency	Integer	No	10	Pages fetched in parallel (1–50). Increase for speed, lower if blocked.
pageDelayMs	Integer	No	250	Delay between HTML requests to avoid rate limiting.
proxyConfiguration	Object	No	Apify proxy, RESIDENTIAL group	Search pages may block datacenter IPs behind Cloudflare — the RESIDENTIAL group gives the highest success rate.

Output Fields

Field	Type	Description
companyName	string	Tradesperson/company name as shown in the directory
uniqueName	string	Unique part of the profile URL (slug)
profileUrl	string	Full Checkatrade profile URL
trade	string	Trade searched
searchLocation	string	Location searched
locality	string	Nearest locality/named area shown by Checkatrade
addressCountry	string	GB
rating	number	Checkatrade rating out of 10 (typically 8–10)
totalReviews	number	Total number of Checkatrade reviews on the profile
phone	string	Phone number shown in the listing (may be null if Checkatrade hides it)
reviewBody	string	Latest review text visible on the search page (null if no review shown)
reviewAuthor	string	Name of the latest review author (null if none)
reviewRating	number	Rating of the latest review (out of 10, null if none)

Integrations & Automation

• Apify API — trigger runs and fetch datasets programmatically from any app
• Webhooks — post run results to your own endpoint when a run finishes
• Zapier / Make — connect the dataset to Google Sheets, CRMs and email tools
• Scheduling — run weekly or monthly to refresh lead lists and track rating changes over time

Recommended pattern for lead gen: schedule the actor weekly per trade × region, keep pageDelayMs around 250–500, and export the dataset to your CRM.

Related Actors

Links above are the most-used actors in the Checkatrade/UK-trades cluster on Apify, useful for comparison or for pulling richer per-profile data when needed:

• vulnv/checkatrade — most-used Checkatrade actor, profile-level crawling, 5.0 rating
• trev0n/checkatrade-scraper — discovery + direct URL modes with review extraction options
• memo23/checkatrade-scraper — 36-field rows with skills, badges, member-since, opt-in full review history
• parsebird/checkatrade-scraper — per-profile with VAT and trust badges
• lead.gen.labs Checkatrade UK trades leads with website enrichment — adds website enrichment to leads

FAQ

Why use this actor instead of the official Checkatrade API?

Checkatrade's official developer API is affiliate-only: its single purpose is to submit jobs (POST /jobs) to the Checkatrade network. It does not expose tradespeople listings, ratings, reviews, or contact data. The public web directory is the only accessible source of that data, which is exactly what this actor extracts.

What are the alternatives to this actor / to Checkatrade data?

On Apify: vulnv/checkatrade, trev0n/checkatrade-scraper, memo23/checkatrade-scraper (see Related Actors). Off-platform UK trades lead sources: MyBuilder, Rated People, TrustATrader, Checkatrade itself via the affiliated directory. This actor's edge: the lowest per-result price ($3 per 1,000 rows) with review text included by default and native trade × location expansion in one run.

How can I scrape Checkatrade without getting blocked?

The actor already handles TLS fingerprinting via Chrome impersonation. For large runs, use the RESIDENTIAL proxy group — Checkatrade's Cloudflare setup frequently rejects datacenter IPs.

What is the Checkatrade rating scale?

Out of 10 — ratings such as 9.8 or 7.6 are common. reviewRating is also on a 10-point scale.

How much does a run cost?

Pay-per-result: $0.003 per tradesperson row plus a $0.0005 run start. A 500-tradesperson run costs about $1.50; 1,000 rows cost ~$3.00.

SEO Keywords

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For AI Agents & LLM Apps

Purpose. Given UK trades and locations (or direct Checkatrade search URLs), returns structured rows of vetted tradespeople: companyName, profileUrl, trade, searchLocation, locality, rating (out of 10), totalReviews, phone, and the latest reviewBody/reviewAuthor/reviewRating from the search page.

Minimal working input:

{
  "trades": ["Plumber"],
  "locations": ["IG11 8BB"]
}

Variant — direct URLs (overrides trades/locations):

{
  "startUrls": ["https://www.checkatrade.com/Search/Electrician/in/Greater-London"],
  "maxItems": 50
}

Variant — multi-trade, multi-location sweep (cross-product):

{
  "trades": ["Plumber", "Electrician", "Builder"],
  "locations": ["London", "Manchester", "Birmingham"],
  "maxItems": 300
}

Output fields (13): companyName, uniqueName, profileUrl, trade, searchLocation, locality, addressCountry, rating, totalReviews, phone, reviewBody, reviewAuthor, reviewRating.

Behaviors an agent should know.

• startUrls takes priority: if provided, trades and locations are ignored.
• Otherwise each trade is combined with every location (cartesian product) — be deliberate or you can sweep very wide at once.
• maxItems defaults to 100 in the form, but the code treats 0 as unlimited — always set an explicit cap for cost control.
• rating and reviewRating are out of 10, not 5.
• phone, reviewBody, reviewAuthor, reviewRating are null when Checkatrade doesn't show them on the search page. Full review history and extra profile fields (skills, badges, member-since) are not exposed by this actor — for those, see memo23/checkatrade-scraper.
• Datacenter IPs are often blocked; instruct the caller to expect RESIDENTIAL proxies to be the reliable configuration for large runs.

Billing: Pay-per-result: $0.0005 per run (Actor Start) + $0.003 per returned tradesperson row.

Legal & Compliance Disclaimer

This actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Checkatrade. It accesses only publicly visible Checkatrade search pages that require no login; it does not bypass authentication, solve CAPTCHAs, or crawl members-only areas.

You are responsible for complying with Checkatrade's Terms of Service and applicable data-protection law when using extracted data. Output may include publicly listed business contact details and the names of review authors — treat review-author names and phone numbers as personal data (UK GDPR applies). Do not use extracted data for unsolicited commercial outreach in violation of applicable law (e.g. CAN-SPAM, UK PECR). This section is a compliance note, not legal advice.