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Getting workHow to get work from landlords and letting agents
One landlord can be worth twenty domestic customers. Here is how the work is really won, and why the best electrician rarely gets it.
James Dewane, electrician and founder of My Electricians ToolBox•Updated 22 August 2026•4 min readDomestic customers ring you once every five years. A landlord with nine properties rings you nine times a year, and a letting agent managing four hundred doors can keep two electricians busy on their own. Same trade, same van, completely different business.
The reason most electricians never get that work is not skill. It is that landlord and agent work is won in a way domestic work never is. Nobody searches, compares three quotes and picks the nice one. They use whoever is already on the list, and the list is short.
Understand what an agent is actually buying
A letting agent does not care that you are a good electrician. They assume that. What keeps them awake is a tenant with no hot water on a Friday, a landlord shouting about a bill, and a compliance folder with a missing certificate in it when the council asks.
So they are not buying electrical work. They are buying the end of a problem. The electrician who gets the call is the one who answers the phone, turns up when they said, and sends the certificate the same day without being chased three times.
The five things that get you on the list
| What they need | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Answers the phone | Calls returned inside two hours, every time |
| Access handled | You ring the tenant and book it, not them |
| Certificate the same day | Report written and emailed before you go to bed |
| Prices they can predict | A fixed schedule of rates, agreed once, no haggling |
| Paperwork in order | Public liability, scheme card, and a clean invoice with the property address on it |
Read that list again. Only one line is about electrics. The other four are about being easy to deal with, and that is exactly why an average electrician who is organised beats a brilliant one who is chaotic.
How to approach them without being a nuisance
Do not email. Everybody emails and it goes in the same bin as the boiler company and the drone photographer. Walk in on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning, ask for the property manager by name, and keep it to two minutes.
Say who you are, that you cover their area, that you do EICRs, remedials and emergency call outs, and that you handle tenant access yourself. Leave one sheet of paper with your rates on it and your insurance details, and go. Then go back in three weeks. Not to sell, just to say hello and leave a second copy. Most electricians give up after the first visit, which is precisely why the third visit works.
Take a sample report with you. Print one real EICR with the address blanked out. Nothing else you can hand over makes the point as fast. They can see the detail, the layout and how readable it is, and they immediately picture their compliance folder full of them.
Price for volume, but do not price for nothing
Agents will ask for a discount because they are offering regular work. That is fair, up to a point. Give them a schedule of rates that is five to ten percent below your standard domestic price, not thirty percent, and give it on the basis of volume that you actually receive.
| Item | Domestic price | Agent schedule |
|---|---|---|
| EICR, 7 to 10 circuits | £280 | £255 |
| Hourly rate for remedials | £60 | £55 |
| Emergency call out, same day | £120 | £120 |
| Consumer unit change | £650 | £600 |
Notice the call out does not move. Same day emergency cover is the thing they cannot get anywhere else, so it is the last thing you should discount. If the volume never appears, the schedule goes back to standard prices. Say that politely at the start and it is never an argument later.
Get paid, or it is not work
The one real risk with agent work is payment. Thirty days becomes sixty, sixty becomes a phone call you keep putting off, and one bad agent can hurt more than a year of good ones helped.
Three rules keep you safe. Agree payment terms in writing before the first job, not after. Invoice the same day with the property address as the reference so it cannot get lost in their system. And the moment an invoice goes past terms, stop taking new instructions from that office until it clears. Say it warmly and stick to it. The good agents respect it because their decent contractors all do the same.
Two agents is a full diary
You do not need this to work at scale. Two decent letting agents and a handful of private landlords will fill a diary and take the panic out of January. Twenty minutes a week walking into offices for a month is usually enough to land the first one.
Then keep the flow going. Ask every landlord you already work for who manages their other properties, because most of them own more than one and almost none of them get asked. It is the easiest lead you will ever generate, and it is sitting in your invoice history right now.
If you also want the private customers to keep coming in alongside it, that is a different job, and showing up in local search is where it starts.
Common questions
How do I find letting agents in my area?
Search your town plus letting agents, then sort by the ones with the most properties listed. Walk in to the nearest ten. It takes a morning and it beats a hundred emails.
Should I discount for a letting agent?
A small discount for genuine volume is fine, five to ten percent. Never discount your emergency call out, because same day cover is the thing they struggle most to buy.
What paperwork do agents ask for?
Public liability insurance, your scheme registration, and sometimes a health and safety policy. Have all three ready as PDFs so you can send them the same day they ask.
How do I stop agents paying late?
Agree terms in writing before the first job, invoice the same day with the property address as the reference, and pause new instructions the moment an invoice goes past terms.
Is landlord work worth it if I prefer domestic?
It is worth having some. Landlord work fills the quiet weeks and is bookable in advance, which makes the whole diary calmer even if domestic stays your main trade.
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