How we chose
We built the candidate list from Google Places listings across Telford, Companies House records and each firm's own website, then sourced claimed memberships from the Federation of Master Builders and TrustMark registers [1][2][8]. Every business must first meet our basic checks: it is who it says it is, it is trading today and can be reached, and anything it must hold by law is in place. A dozen firms entered the research and ten make the ranked table. We looked first at what customers say, then qualifications, then trading history, stated cover, pricing clarity and website detail. All evidence is dated early September 2026.
How to hire
Match the firm to the job. A general builder suits extensions, garage and loft conversions, knock-throughs and renovations that mix bricklaying, roofing, plastering and joinery. Single-craft jobs, such as a garden wall alone or a bathroom refit, often sit better with a bricklayer or a bathroom specialist, and anything structural needs drawings from an architect or structural engineer before a builder can price it properly. Ask who project-manages when several crafts overlap, and who guarantees each part.
Telford and Wrekin brings its own wrinkles. The council runs its own building-control service with full-plans, building-notice and regularisation routes, and its surveyors inspect at key stages before any completion certificate is issued [15]. Eight conservation areas include Wellington and the Severn Gorge, whose protected settlements run from Madeley through Ironbridge to Coalport [16][23]. Expect tighter controls there, including permission to fell most trees and detailed plans with heritage statements for new building [24]. Beyond those historic cores, much of the town grew from Dawley new town into Telford, mixing an old market town with newer estates [21]. Where homes share walls, party-wall notices to neighbours apply to many extensions and loft jobs [20].
Check registration and standing yourself, in this order. Look the firm up on the Federation of Master Builders and TrustMark registers rather than taking a logo on a van at face value [1][2]. Check limited companies on Companies House to confirm active status and a matching trading name [8]. Ask to see public liability insurance and, where the firm employs staff, employer's liability cover, and read the dates and limits on the certificates [7]. Then ask for two recent local jobs you can see or verify, ideally one finished over a year ago so you can judge how the work has settled.
Get three itemised written quotes that separate labour, materials, plant hire, waste removal and VAT, and compare them line by line rather than on the bottom figure [7]. Confirm who handles planning permission and building-regulations approval, since most structural, drainage and electrical work in Telford needs the latter even when the former is not required [3][4]. Agree payment stages tied to visible progress, a start and finish window, daily working hours, who supervises on site, and how snagging is recorded and closed. Put all of it in a written contract before anyone lifts a tool.
Stay in charge of who does what once work starts. Confirm which parts are subcontracted and check those tickets too: gas pipework needs a Gas Safe engineer, new circuits need a competent electrician on a scheme such as NICEIC or NAPIT, and replacement glazing needs FENSA certification or building-control sign-off [6][9][10][11]. Rubble taken away for payment must go with a licensed waste carrier, which you can check on the public register [12]. If the site looks unsafe, scaffolding unguarded or welfare missing, raise it the same day and record it in writing [5].
Keep control of changes and inspections while the build runs. Agree that every variation to the scope, however small, is priced and signed off in writing before it is built, since extras agreed on the hoof cause most disputes over final bills [7]. Ask who supervises day to day and who your single point of contact is, and agree how often you walk the job together. Check that building-control inspections are booked at each stage and passed before the next begins [4].
Collect the paperwork before you make the final payment. For notifiable work that means the building-control completion certificate, plus FENSA certificates for replacement glazing and any electrical installation certificates for new circuits [4][11]. Gather the written guarantees with their terms and lengths, the itemised final invoice, and receipts for any stage payments already made. File the bundle alongside your deeds, since a future buyer will ask for it.
A typical job runs the same course whatever the trade. First contact means photos, measurements and your address going to two or three firms, followed by site visits where the estimator sees access, levels and the existing structure. Each written quote should price the same scope so the figures compare, with permissions and a start week agreed alongside. On site, the builder names the supervisor and the daily contact, books building-control inspections at each stage, and prices every variation in writing before building it. At the end you walk the snagging list together, collect the certificates and guarantees, and only then release the final payment [15].
Some jobs need paperwork owners often miss. Replacing more than a quarter of a roof can need approval with an insulation upgrade, and a garage conversion that creates a habitable room always needs it, as does new drainage or an extra WC [17]. Removing the wall between kitchen and dining room in an older property usually means a structural alteration with an application behind it [17]. Replacement windows can go through a competent-person scheme, but a brand-new opening still needs approval as a structural change [17]. Where work went ahead without approval, the council’s regularisation route can retrospectively check and certify it [15].
Pricing
As of autumn 2026, Checkatrade's cost guide, updated in September 2025, puts a single-storey extension at roughly £40,000 to £56,000 for twenty square metres and £60,000 to £84,000 for thirty, excluding VAT [13]. As a rule of thumb the guide budgets £1,800 to £3,000 per square metre for a full extension, with kitchens, bathrooms and lofts costing more than standard rooms [13]. Treat these as planning figures, since Telford labour usually sits below London and South East prices.
Garage conversions run roughly £8,500 to £20,000 for fifteen square metres including materials and labour [13]. A shell-only extension, watertight but with no glazing, utilities or finishes, runs about £1,200 to £1,700 per square metre for anyone planning to fit it out themselves [13]. A two-storey extension on sixty square metres lands near £108,000 to £180,000, since the second floor rides on foundations and a roof already paid for [13].
Garages get their own sums. Checkatrade’s dedicated guide, updated in May 2026, puts an attached or integral garage conversion at £10,000 to £20,000 including a basic fit-out, with detached garages higher because services are harder to connect and partial conversions lower [18]. Condition of the slab, insulation, heating and whether new doorways are cut all move the figure, and a habitable room always needs building-control approval [18][17].
Lofts vary by shape. Checkatrade’s March 2026 guide puts a simple rooflight conversion near £27,500 and a dormer near £50,000, with mansard and hip-to-gable forms higher, so most budgets land somewhere between the two ends of that range [19]. Roof structure, stair access, steel sizes and the bathroom fit-out move the total, and drawings plus building-control sign-off belong in every loft budget [19].
Ground conditions move the price most: clay, slopes and poor access around Telford's estates add digger time and muck-away costs, while glazing area, steel sizes, a consumer-unit upgrade and kitchen fit-out all shift the total [13][14]. The published guide figures exclude VAT and professional fees, so ask whether your quote adds either on top [13]. Get the scope, the guarantee terms, the waste plan and the payment stages in writing, and treat any figure given without a site visit as a guess rather than a price [7][12].
Red flags
Prices a structural job or extension from photos alone, without visiting the property, checking access or seeing the drawings.
Asks for most of the money upfront, pushes cash with no invoice, or starts work with no written contract describing scope and stages.
Cannot show current insurance certificates, or the Companies House record does not match the name on the quote [7][8].
Begins structural, drainage or electrical alterations with no mention of building-regulations approval or inspection stages [4].
Subcontracts gas, electrics or glazing yet names no ticketed engineer and offers no certificates for the finished work [6][9][10][11].
Has rubble taken away for payment but gives no waste carrier registration number for the firm removing it [12].
Pressures you to decide today, refuses a start date in writing, or offers no snagging process once the final payment is made.
Asks for the final payment before building control has signed the work off and the completion certificate is in your hands [15].
Prices the job as one bottom-line figure and resists splitting it into labour, materials and VAT when asked.
Corrections and business responses
Tell us what needs checking, or ask to claim a listing and reply to an assessment.