How UK Plumbers Can Find Jobs Before Anyone Else Does

I got a message last month from Craig, a sole trader in Stirling who does bathrooms and central heating. He'd been on Checkatrade for nearly two years, paying around £90 a month, and felt like he was competing against four other plumbers on every job at a price he didn't want to win. He asked me if there was a smarter way to find work. I told him to look up his local council's planning portal and search for recently approved applications - loft conversions, rear extensions, garage conversions, anything that sounded like it was turning into habitable space. That week he sent twelve letters to homeowners whose applications had just been approved. Three replied. One booked him for a full en-suite in June. He hasn't paid for a Checkatrade lead since.

The method is called planning application outreach, and it has been sitting in plain sight for as long as councils have had public planning portals. Every time a homeowner gets permission approved for an extension, a loft conversion, or a new build, that decision is recorded publicly. The address, the type of work, the approval date - all of it is searchable, for free, right now. Most plumbers have never looked at it. The ones who have are quietly booking jobs that nobody else even knew existed. If you want to understand the broader picture of where plumbing leads disappear before they reach you, our post on why plumbers lose jobs before they even know about them runs through all the leak points together.

This post explains exactly how the planning lead method works, what the numbers look like compared to what you're currently paying for leads, and how to do it yourself today with no tools and no cost beyond a stamp.

Why This Lead Is Different to Every Other

When a homeowner's planning application is approved, they are about to spend money on plumbing. Not maybe. Not potentially. The planning decision is their commitment. They've paid an architect, gone through the council process, and waited eight to twelve weeks for a decision - they are not doing that for something they might not follow through on. The approved application is as close to a guaranteed future job as you can get before the groundwork starts.

What makes it more valuable still is exclusivity. When you pay for a Checkatrade lead or a MyBuilder enquiry, you're buying access to a customer who has already asked for quotes from three to five plumbers simultaneously. The platform sold the same contact to everyone. You are competing on price from the moment you see the name. With a planning application, you're the only one who has reached out. The homeowner hasn't started looking for quotes yet. You are not the fifth plumber they have heard from - you are the first.

Here is the thing I'll put my name to that most people in this space won't say: paid lead platforms are a tax on being reactive. Checkatrade and MyBuilder have built a model around selling the same enquiry multiple times. You're always entering a conversation where price is the main question, and several other plumbers set the frame before you arrive. Planning application outreach inverts that completely - you find the job before anyone is even looking for a plumber, you make contact first, and the conversation is yours to set the tone on.

The Maths: What an Early Lead Is Actually Worth

These figures are based on averages from sole trader plumbers, not best-case estimates. Conversion rates for planning outreach vary depending on the letter, the timing, and the type of job - but even conservative numbers compare favourably to what most plumbers currently pay. Join the Planning Leads waitlist if you want early access to the tool that finds these jobs for you automatically.

A 5% conversion rate on 40 exclusive contacts gets you 2 jobs a month from a source that costs less than a tank of fuel. At 10-15% - which is realistic for a well-written letter to the right job type - you're looking at 4-6 jobs. Two extra jobs a month at an average of £500 per job is £12,000 a year in additional revenue, at a cost of roughly £480 in stamps. That return on spend does not exist anywhere else in trade marketing. Read that number again.

How to Find These Applications Right Now (Free)

The data is public and free. You don't need an account, a subscription, or anything except a browser and some time.

In England: Search for your local council name plus "planning applications" - most council websites have a public search tool. Filter by application type (householder), decision (approved or granted), and a date range of the last four to eight weeks. Alternatively, planning.data.gov.uk aggregates applications across all English councils in one place.

In Scotland: Use ePlanning Scotland. Filter by permission type, decision date, and area. Works the same way.

What to look for: single-storey and two-storey rear extensions, loft conversions, garage-to-habitable conversions, orangeries, and new single dwellings. These almost always include plumbing work - new bathrooms, kitchen sinks, heating extensions, en-suites. What to skip: fence replacements, solar panel installations, change of use for commercial properties, and tree preservation orders. They will not generate plumbing work.

Once you have a list of addresses, the letter is simpler than most people expect.

What Your Letter Should Actually Say

One page. No hard sell. Short and human. The homeowner does not know you yet, and the job may be six months away - the goal is to be the plumber they think of when the work starts, not to close them immediately.

Something like: "Hi, I noticed your recent planning approval at [address] - congratulations on getting it through. I'm a local plumber specialising in [bathrooms / heating / first and second fix] and I work on a lot of extensions and loft conversions in this area. If you'd like to talk through the plumbing side of things at any point, I'd be happy to come out and have a look. No pressure - just putting my name forward early. [Name], [number]."

First person. Specific to their situation. Mentions what you actually do. No list of qualifications in the first paragraph, no pricing, no "contact us today for a free quote." The letter's job is to get them to pick up the phone or send a text when the groundwork starts - not to convert them in the moment.

What the Best Plumbers Are Already Doing

The plumbers who find the most consistent pipeline of new work are not the ones spending most on Checkatrade or the ones with the best Google reviews. They are the ones who know where new work is coming before anyone else does. Some do this manually, searching their council portal on a Sunday evening and writing letters on Monday. A small number have started automating pieces of it.

The advantage right now is that this approach is still genuinely uncommon. Most sole traders have never searched a planning portal. The ones who have are operating in a near-empty lane. How long that lasts depends on how quickly the word spreads - which is exactly why it is worth starting now rather than when everyone is doing it.

We're Building a Tool That Automates This

The manual version - searching portals, filtering applications, cross-referencing addresses, writing letters - takes two to three hours a week done properly. For the plumbers who do it consistently, that time pays back several times over. But most sole traders do not have three hours of admin time they're willing to trade in, which is why most never start even when they know the method works.

I'm building a tool specifically for UK plumbers that handles the monitoring automatically. You set your postcode and the types of jobs you want to hear about. It watches every relevant council planning portal in your area. When applications matching your criteria are approved, it sends you a weekly digest: the address, what type of work was approved, what plumbing is likely needed, and a ready-to-personalise letter template. You spend twenty minutes a week acting on leads instead of three hours finding them.

I'm building the first version around Scottish planning data - ePlanning Scotland first, then rolling out across England and Wales. If you want to be in the first group to test it, and to lock in the founding member price before it goes public, the waiting list is open now: plumberproai.co.uk/planning-leads. Free to join, no obligation, I'll email you directly when it's ready.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long after approval should I send the letter?
Two to four weeks after the decision date is the sweet spot. Too early and the homeowner is still absorbing the approval rather than thinking about contractors. Too late and a builder may have already recommended a plumber. The window just after approval - when they're starting to plan how the project actually gets built - is where your letter lands best.

Do I need the homeowner's contact details to send a letter?
No. The address from the planning application is all you need - a letter addressed to "The Homeowner" at the approved address reaches the right person. The applicant name is sometimes listed in the planning decision as well if you want to personalise it further.

What types of job are worth targeting for plumbing work?
Rear extensions, loft conversions, garage-to-room conversions, and new single dwellings are the most reliable. Kitchen-only extensions are good. Fence replacements, solar panels, and change of use applications for storage buildings are not worth a stamp.

Is this data actually free?
Yes. UK councils are legally required to publish planning decisions publicly. The address, type of application, decision date, and applicant name are all accessible at no cost through council portals and national aggregators including planning.data.gov.uk in England and ePlanning Scotland north of the border.

Couldn't any plumber do this?
Yes - and a small number already do. The majority of sole traders have never searched a planning portal. The advantage right now is that the method is still genuinely uncommon, which means the outreach is still exclusive in most areas. Whether that stays true in three years is a different question. In the meantime, the lane is empty.

Craig from Stirling sent twelve letters, booked one en-suite job, and covered a year's worth of Checkatrade fees in a single job. We're building the automated version so you don't need to find the time to do it manually. The waiting list for early access is at plumberproai.co.uk/planning-leads - free to join. And if you want to be among the first to use the automated version of this, the Planning Leads waitlist is free to join.