WHEN entrepreneur Kevin Byrne first formed Checkatrade in 1998, little did he know the impact the company would have on the UK trading industry.

In the wake of a tornado which devastated his hometown of Selsey, he noticed that there had been an increase in the amount of rogue traders in the area.

So he created Checkatrade as a place where people could source reliable and trusted tradespeople.

Since then the business has grown at a phenomenal pace.

They provide an online resource where tradespeople including builders, plumbers and electricians are vetted with 18 consideration of which 13 are actual checks before they become a Checkatrade member to ensure they are to the highest possible quality.

Next year marks is the company’s 20th anniversary.

It now has more than 26,000 members.

It has 1.5 million visits per month to the website.

A total of 3.2 million customer reviews have been published.

All tradespeople on the website are independently reviewed by customers so only the most reputable tradespeople are featured.

A total of 288 jobs have been generated to date with a total of £3.6 billion contributed to trades and services.

It has highlighted 9,500 new employment positions for companies across the UK in the past 12 months

Since 2013 Checkatrade have been the stadium sponsor for Crawley Town who play in the national football league.

This involves the team’s stadium now being known as The Checkatrade Stadium.

In 2016 the company also acquired the sponsorship of the EFL Trophy which is now known as the Checkatrade Trophy.

This has been a huge success and last season culminated in Coventry City winning the trophy, defeating Oxford United in front of a record-breaking crowd of 74,434 fans at Wembley Stadium.

Checkatrade’s profile continues to grow nationally.