What a missed call could cost you
Every figure on our site comes with its working. Here's ours. Check it, then put in your own numbers.
One job a week you never see
Say a missed call was a roof repair, and once a week the caller goes to the next roofer on the list.
At £650, the lower of two published UK averages for a roof repair (Oct 2026), that's £33,800 a year, or about £2,820 a month.
These are examples, not figures for your business. Your jobs may be worth more, and you may miss more or fewer calls. Use the calculator.
| Trade | Everyday job | Job value* | A year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roofer | Roof repair | £650 | £33,800 |
| Electrician | Fuse box replacement | £525 | £27,300 |
| Plumber | Emergency plumbing job | £178 | £9,260 |
*The lower of two published UK averages for that job (Oct 2026). One lost job a week, rounded to £10. Sources below.
Put in your own numbers
Example: change these to your own.
The sum
Three missed enquiries a week, with one in three won, comes to one lost job a week. That's the example on our home page.
One in three is our assumption. Nobody has published a reliable UK figure for how many answered trade calls turn into work. So we say "assuming", and you can change it above.
Three a week is an example. We can't tell you how many calls you miss. You can.
- A thirdof UK tradespeople believe they've lost work because they couldn't answer the phone.*
- Six in tentradespeople say they struggle to answer the phone at work.*
- 28%of business calls go unanswered, according to CallRail's data.†
*Fix Radio survey of 220+ UK tradespeople, 2022, reported by PHAM News. †CallRail, July 2026.
Where the numbers come from
Each job value is the lower of two or more published UK averages for that job, checked on 7 October 2026. We use the lower figure so the example stays cautious.
| Job | Value we use | Published UK averages |
|---|---|---|
| Roof repair | £650 | MyJobQuote £650 · Checkatrade £875 |
| Fuse box replacement | £525 | MyJobQuote £525 · Checkatrade £608 |
| Emergency plumbing job | £178 | Checkatrade £178 · MyJobQuote £200 |
| Roof replacement | £5,250 | MyJobQuote £5,250 · Checkatrade £7,567 · Rated People £14,000 |
| House extension | £30,000 | MyBuilder £30,000 · Checkatrade £32,709 · MyJobQuote £35,000 |
Roof replacement and house extension are bigger jobs that come in less often. On our home page we show them as the value of one job, not a yearly figure, and the calculator starts them at one missed enquiry a month.
What we don't know: these publishers don't say how many jobs their averages are based on, and most don't say whether VAT is included. None publish prices from completed jobs. We use the figures as published and say when we checked them.
Google: "Missed calls may negatively affect your responsiveness" (Google Local Services Help, "About ad rankings", accessed Oct 2026). Charging for some missed calls: Google notice to Local Services ads advertisers, Aug 2026, as reported by Search Engine Land.
We check every figure on this page each quarter, and the month next to it tells you when we last did.
MyJobQuote, Checkatrade, MyBuilder, Rated People, Fix Radio, CallRail and Google are named only as the sources of these figures. They don't endorse Tradeworthy.