Post jobs, hire verified insured tradespeople, pay through escrow. Money is locked until you approve the work. Reviews only unlock when the job is complete. The UK trades industry, finally fixed.
Payment is captured by Stripe when a bid is accepted. Locked until the client approves. Nobody can access it mid-job — not the trader, not the client, not us.
Traders cannot accept a single job without verified Public Liability Insurance. No badge, no work. We check it — it is not self-declared.
Leaving a review is impossible until payment is released and the job is confirmed complete. Enforced by a database trigger — not just the UI. No fake ratings.
After every job, clients rate traders and traders rate clients. Bad actors on either side get identified. The whole marketplace gets safer over time.
The UK trades industry is full of fake reviews — traders buying them, clients leaving revenge ratings mid-job. TradeShield has made both impossible at the database level.
This is not a UI restriction. It is a PostgreSQL BEFORE INSERT trigger on the reviews table itself.
BEFORE INSERT trigger.jobs.status = 'completed'? Are client_can_review and trader_can_review both TRUE?complete_job() — a server-side function called exclusively when the client approves payment release.No insurance means no account. We check credentials before any trader can accept work. Every badge you see is verified — not self-declared.
Minimum £1m cover. We track expiry and notify traders before it lapses.
All gas engineers checked against the official Gas Safe Register.
Electricians verified against their registered competent persons scheme.
Government-issued ID checked. Anonymity is not an option on TradeShield.
Every trader in every category carries verified insurance before they can accept work.
Three problems every client and trader in the UK faces. Three reasons TradeShield exists.
Paying upfront and never seeing the trader again. Shoddy work with no recourse. No way to hold anyone accountable. TradeShield escrow means your money never leaves until you're satisfied.
Skilled tradespeople completing good work and then spending months chasing payment. Cash flow destroyed. With TradeShield, the money is locked and guaranteed before you start the job.
Current platforms are full of fake 5-star reviews bought in bulk or left by friends. Clients cannot tell who is genuinely good. TradeShield reviews can only exist after real, completed, paid work.
Insured traders. Locked escrow. Verified reviews. Free to post. The platform the UK trades industry has needed for 30 years.