Best Plumber in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds & Glasgow: Google vs Gemini, With Screenshots of Every Search

This is the plumbing-specific breakdown from our wider 20-search study across four UK trades, pulled apart so plumbers can see their own city-by-city results without wading through electricians, roofers and carpenters too. We ran "best plumber in [city]" through Google UK and through Gemini's live web app, in a real logged-in browser session, for London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Glasgow — every screenshot below captured live on 8 August 2026, same phrase, same day, both platforms.

Methodology, briefly

For each city we searched the identical query text on google.com/search (UK region forced), recording the organic top-10 and the local map-pack businesses with ratings and review counts, then asked Gemini the same question in a fresh chat at gemini.google.com/app, recording every business it named. Each Gemini citation was then checked, name by name, against Google's own results for the identical search. Full methodology is in the main study.

London: one match, and a direct warning about directories

Google's organic results are led by Checkatrade ("125 Trusted Plumbers in London") and Pimlico Plumbers, then a Reddit r/london thread whose top answer reads: "All those aggregator sites like Checkatrade are rubbish — nobody wants a list of people…" The local pack shows Aza & Sons Services (4.9★, 405 reviews), Rapid React Plumbing (4.9★, 222 reviews) and East End Plumbers (5.0★, 514 reviews).

Gemini cited Pimlico Plumbers, Plumb London (named twice, for two locations) and 24-7 Emergency Plumbing Limited, then appended generic advice to check the Gas Safe Register and to "look for endorsements on platforms like Which? Trusted Traders, Checkatrade, or TrustATrader" — treating directories as a verification layer rather than a citation source. Only Pimlico Plumbers is independently verifiable, matching Google's own organic result. Plumb London and 24-7 Emergency Plumbing Limited don't appear anywhere in Google's top-10 or local pack for the identical search — in a city where the top Reddit answer for this exact query was warning people away from aggregator sites altogether.

Manchester: one match

Manchester's local pack shows AD Plumbing Heating and Electrical (4.9★, 128 reviews), Daniel Plumbing and Handyman (4.9★, 374 reviews) and A A Manchester Plumbing (4.8★, 104 reviews). JB7 Plumbing, SR Plumbing and JD Plumbing & Heating appear in the organic results alongside the WaterSafe regulator directory.

Gemini named JB7 Plumbing and Heating Limited and Manchester Plumbing and Heating (Sale). JB7 Plumbing and Heating Limited matches Google's own organic result verbatim ("JB7 Plumbing and Heating Ltd Manchester | Trusted Experts"). Manchester Plumbing and Heating (Sale) doesn't appear anywhere in Google's top-10 or local pack — and neither of Gemini's two picks matches any of the three genuinely top-reviewed plumbers in Google's own local pack.

Birmingham: strong overlap, and one business invisible on Google entirely

Birmingham's organic results include an eight-year-old Birmingham Live listicle, "The ten top-rated plumbers in Birmingham," dated 14 August 2018 and still ranking in 2026 — alongside CH Parker Kings Norton, Mere Green Gas, Jack The Plumber Ltd and Afterglow Plumbing. The local pack shows Jack The Plumber (5.0★, 285 reviews), MK Plumbing Birmingham (5.0★, 148 reviews) and Summit Plumbing & Heating (4.9★, 95 reviews).

Gemini cited Afterglow Plumbing & Heating Limited, Hancox Gas and Plumbing and AB Plumbing & Heating. Two of three verify: Afterglow Plumbing & Heating Limited matches Google's organic result verbatim (afterglowheating.co.uk), and AB Plumbing & Heating matches a business named inside Trust A Trader's own Birmingham directory listing that ranks on Google. Hancox Gas and Plumbing does not appear anywhere in Google's top-10 for the identical search — completely invisible on Google, fully visible on Gemini, in an answer a Birmingham customer might act on today.

Leeds: the strongest result in this article

Leeds' local pack shows Plumbers Leeds (4.9★, 220 reviews, top of the map pack), SFR Plumbing & Heating Ltd (4.9★, 139 reviews) and Leeds Home Plumbing (5.0★, 41 reviews). Paul Scurfield Plumbing, LS1 Plumbing, D Plumbing Services and Harris Heating appear organically.

Gemini named Plumbers Leeds, SFR Plumbing & Heating Ltd, John The Plumber, The Plumber Leeds and Norton Plumbing. Three of five verify — the strongest match count in this article: Plumbers Leeds and SFR Plumbing & Heating Ltd both match Google's own local pack exactly, and John The Plumber was visible as a pin on Google's own Maps result for the identical search. The Plumber Leeds and Norton Plumbing don't appear in Google's top-10 at all.

Glasgow: zero overlap, and a repeat below-average citation

Glasgow's local pack shows The Glasgow Plumbers (4.8★, 152 reviews), Glasgow Plumbing Solutions (4.9★, 62 reviews) and MCDGAS (4.9★, 220 reviews). Organic results include jsl-plumbing.com, C Hanlon and colintheplumber-glasgow.co.uk alongside Trust A Trader, Checkatrade, Scotland Trusted Trader and Which?.

Gemini's answer named GPH Plumbing & Heating, Young's Plumbing and Heating, Chalmers Gas & Heating LTD and John Fulton (Plumbers) Ltd — the last cited at 3.5 stars, below every one of Google's own top three local-pack plumbers (4.8–4.9★). Zero of the four citations appear in Google's own results for the identical search. We re-ran this exact query on a separate occasion during this project and John Fulton (Plumbers) Ltd was cited again, at the identical 3.5-star rating — a repeated, reproducible result rather than a one-off, and further evidence that Gemini isn't gating citations by star rating the way you might assume a recommendation engine would.

The plumber scoreboard, all five cities

City	Gemini citations	Verified on Google	Result
London	3	1	Partial
Manchester	2	1	Partial
Birmingham	3	2	Strong
Leeds	5	3	Strongest
Glasgow	4	0	Zero overlap

Across all five cities, Gemini named 17 plumbing businesses, of which 7 (41%) were independently verifiable on Google — the highest verification rate of any of the four trades we tested. Still, 59% of what Gemini told users doesn't show up anywhere on Google's own first page for the identical search.

What this means if you're a plumber

Plumber came out as the most Google/Gemini-aligned trade in our wider four-trade study, and Leeds and Birmingham back that up here — three-fifths and two-thirds overlap respectively is meaningfully better than most of the combinations we tested elsewhere. But Glasgow shows the same trade can produce a total mismatch in a different city, and London shows that even the businesses real customers are actively warning each other away from on Reddit ("nobody wants a list of people…") can still end up being what an AI system serves back to the next customer who asks. If you run a plumbing business, the takeaway isn't "plumbers are safe" — it's that overlap varies city to city even within the same trade, so check your own market specifically rather than assuming the trade-level average applies to you.

Run "best plumber in [your city]" on Google and Gemini yourself, side by side, the way we did — it takes about two minutes and tells you exactly where you stand today. Our free GEO score tool will show you what's missing from your own site, and our guide to schema markup for AI covers the structured-data work that seems to matter most for AI citation specifically. If you'd like this handled for you, plumber website design is one of our core services at GeoRankLocal.

For the same test across electricians, roofers and carpenters — plus the combined four-trade dataset — see the main study.