How to Start a PAT Testing Business From Scratch

Starting a PAT testing business takes four things:

1. Evidence that you are competent to test,
2. A calibrated instrument,
3. Insurance, and
4. A list of buyers who have a reason to book.

None of it requires an electrical background, and none of it requires a licence, because no licence for this work exists. What the law does require is that electrical equipment which could cause injury is kept safe, and portable appliance testing is one recognised way of demonstrating that.

This guide covers what the work involves, where it sits legally, what qualification and training the business needs, what equipment to buy, what the setup costs, how testers price jobs, and who actually books them.

What Does a PAT Testing Business Actually Do?

A PAT testing business inspects and tests portable electrical appliances at a client’s premises, records the result for every item, and issues the client a report they can produce as evidence.

A portable appliance is any electrical item that can be moved while connected to, or disconnected from, a supply. In practice that means anything with a plug and a lead: kettles, desktop computers, extension leads, power tools, floor cleaners, catering equipment.

The work has four components, and they run in the same order on every job:

• Formal visual inspection. Checking the lead, plug, casing and connections for damage, wrong fuse, scorching or wear. Most defects are found here.
• Instrument testing. Earth continuity, insulation resistance, polarity, earth leakage and load, depending on the appliance class. Some defects are only found this way.
• Labelling. A pass or fail label applied to the item, with the date and the tester’s identifier.
• Recording. An entry for every appliance in an equipment register, and a report issued to the client.

All of that is carried out to the IET Code of Practice 5th Edition, which is the practical standard the trade works to. The testing itself is the visible half of the job.

The report is the half the client keeps, produces to their insurer, and hands to an auditor, which is why the recording step carries as much weight as the instrument work. If you are weighing up the personal route into the trade rather than the business around it, our guide on how to become a PAT tester covers the day-to-day role in full.

The obvious next question is whether any of that is legally required.

Is PAT Testing a Legal Requirement for Your Clients?

Portable appliance testing is not named as a legal requirement in UK law. The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require electrical equipment that could cause injury to be “maintained in a safe condition”, and testing is one recognised way of showing that duty has been met.

The Regulations do not specify what must be done, who must do it, or how often. That is deliberate. A power tool on a construction site and a lamp in a hotel bedroom carry different risks, so the law asks the duty holder to take a risk-based approach rather than follow a fixed timetable. HSE guidance makes the same point directly, and adds two more that surprise most new testers: there is no legal requirement to label equipment that has been tested, and no legal requirement to keep records of it.

Buyers want both anyway. A label and a record are how a duty holder demonstrates, after an incident, that they took reasonable care. That is the actual commercial basis of this trade, and it is stronger than the version most guides sell.

It is worth being precise about this, because a great many pages aimed at new testers state flatly that PAT testing is required by law and that it must happen annually. Neither is true. A tester who repeats it to a facilities manager or a letting agent who knows the regulations loses the account in the first conversation. A tester who explains that testing is the practical way of evidencing a duty the client already carries is selling something the client can verify. The correct position is more persuasive than the overstatement, not less.

That absence of a statutory rule shapes the qualification question too.

What Qualification Does a PAT Testing Business Need?

A PAT testing business needs documented evidence that the person testing is competent, and no statutory qualification or licence exists to supply it. The Regulations use the idea of a competent person: someone with the knowledge, training and experience to carry out the work safely and recognise when they cannot. Competence is a state you demonstrate, not a title you are granted.

Two words get used interchangeably here and should not be. A qualification is the training you complete and the credential you hold. A certification in the other sense is the document you issue to a client after testing their equipment. This article keeps them separate, and so should any quote you send.

In practice, evidence of competence means accredited training assessed against the IET Code of Practice 5th Edition, ending in a Certificate of Competence. That certificate is what insurers ask to see before issuing a policy, what commercial clients and letting agents ask for before instructing, and what an auditor asks for afterwards. Nobody asks whether you are an electrician. They ask what you were trained on and who assessed you. Our guide to PAT testing certification sets out what the certificate covers and how it is issued.

What that evidence takes in practice is one day of training.

Which PAT Testing Course Format Suits a New Business?

A one-day course covering electrical safety, appliance classes, testing procedure and record-keeping is the standard route, and it ends in an assessment. A PAT testing course built for this work covers electrical safety, regulations and responsibilities, appliance classes I, II and III, insulation and earthing, earth leakage and run tests, load tests, and how to record results correctly. Assessment at PAT Training Now is a 30-question multiple choice test plus a practical assessment on real appliances, and the UKRS-accredited certificate follows within 7 to 10 days.

The same PAT testing course runs in three formats, and the format changes the price rather than the certificate:

A live tutor-led Zoom day costs £145 plus VAT. An open course day at one of 21-plus UK venues costs £195 plus VAT, with a free tester loan so you can train on an instrument before buying one. On-site training at your own premises starts from £594 plus VAT for a group.

For someone setting up alone, the open day is the format that resolves the equipment question at the same time as the qualification, because you handle several makes of instrument before committing to one. If travel is the obstacle, the Zoom day carries the same certificate. Current dates and venues for both are on the PAT testing courses page.

The certificate is the first purchase. The instrument is the second.

What Equipment Does a PAT Testing Business Need?

A PAT testing business needs a calibrated tester, pass and fail labels, basic hand tools and a way of recording results. Calibration is the periodic check that the instrument’s measurements are still accurate against a known reference. Most manufacturers and the IET Code of Practice set the interval at annually, and an uncalibrated instrument undermines every certificate issued from it.

The instrument market divides into three capability tiers:

• Basic pass/fail testers run the test sequence and show a result, with no memory. Results are written down and typed up afterwards. Lowest purchase price, highest admin time.
• Downloadable testers store results on the unit and transfer them to a computer or phone, which removes the transcription step and the transcription errors with it. This is the tier most working testers settle on.
• Full-feature testers add automatic test sequences, on-board asset registers, direct label printing and connectivity. Highest purchase price, fastest on large sites.

Trade guides published in 2026 put instruments at roughly £200 for a basic unit and up to £800 for a top-end one, with the middle tier around £400 to £600. Beyond the instrument you need pass and fail labels (a few pounds per roll of 500 ), a set of screwdrivers and a torch for visual inspections, a carry case, and either software or a logbook. PAT Training Now’s own course trains on Seaward, Kewtech, Martindale and Fluke instruments, so the trainers can tell you what suits the work you expect to take on before you spend anything.

Those items, plus registration and cover, are the whole opening bill.

What Does It Cost to Set Up a PAT Testing Business?

Setting up a PAT testing business costs a few hundred to around fifteen hundred pounds, covering training, an instrument, labels and accessories, insurance and software. Trade guides published in 2026 consistently put the first-year total under £1,500.

The stack breaks down in a fixed order of size. The instrument is usually the largest single line at £200 to £800. Training is next at £145 to £195 plus VAT for the one-day formats. Insurance follows. Labels, hand tools and a case add a small amount. Software runs from nothing (a spreadsheet) to a few pounds a month for a purpose-built package.

Registering as a sole trader with HMRC costs nothing and is a form, not a process. Two of the lines above recur rather than being one-off: calibration of the instrument, which PAT Training Now puts at £100 to £200 a year, and insurance, which renews annually.

One of those lines is not optional once a commercial client is involved.

What Insurance Does a PAT Tester Need?

Public liability insurance is the cover a PAT testing business needs, because the work involves handling a third party’s equipment on their premises. Public liability responds where the work causes injury to a person or damage to property belonging to someone other than you. Professional indemnity is a separate cover, responding where professional work causes a client financial loss rather than physical damage.

Commercial clients, letting agents and facilities management contractors commonly specify a minimum level of public liability cover in their own terms before they will instruct a contractor, and the level they specify is a condition of the account rather than a judgement about the work. Trade guides published in 2026 put annual public liability premiums for a sole-trader tester in the low hundreds of pounds. Deciding what level of cover is right for your circumstances is a question for a broker, not for a guide.

With the certificate, the instrument and the cover in place, the business can quote.

How Do PAT Testers Price Their Work?

PAT testers price work three ways: a rate per appliance, a rate for the day, and a minimum charge that applies when the item count is too low for either. Every quote uses one of the three, and most testers use all three across a year.

Per-item pricing is tiered rather than flat. Published 2026 cost guidance puts the working range at roughly £1 to £3 per appliance, with the top of the range applying to small jobs and the bottom to high-volume sites. The tiering exists for an arithmetic reason: travel, setup and report production cost the same whether you test twenty items or two hundred, so on a small job those fixed costs are spread across fewer items and the per-item price has to rise to absorb them.

The minimum call-out charge is the same logic taken to its conclusion. Below roughly twenty to thirty items, no realistic per-item rate covers the journey, so a flat minimum applies instead. Published guidance puts that minimum in the £40 to £80 range, most often £50 to £60.

Regional variation is real and follows site density rather than skill. London and the South East sit at the top of the national range, and the North, Midlands, Wales and Scotland sit below it, because travel time per job is the variable being priced. What all of this converts into as earnings is a separate question with a separate answer, and our breakdown of how much can you earn as a PAT tester covers salary bands, day rates and the arithmetic in full.

Pricing only matters once someone asks for a quote.

How Do You Get PAT Testing Clients?

A PAT testing business wins its first clients by approaching the buyers who already have a reason to book, in the order those buyers make decisions. This is the step where most new testing businesses go wrong, and the reason is consistent: they promote the service generally instead of identifying who buys it, what makes them buy it, and when. Buyer identification does the work that generic promotion cannot.

That starts with knowing who is actually buying.

Who Actually Buys PAT Testing?

Letting agents, landlords, workplace duty holders, schools and nurseries, community venues, hospitality businesses and facilities management contractors buy PAT testing. A duty holder is the person or organisation in control of the premises or the work, and therefore carrying the Electricity at Work Regulations duty for the equipment in it. Each group buys for a different reason, and the reason determines how you approach them.

Letting agents are the highest-value first target because one agent controls dozens of properties running on the same annual cycle, and a single relationship converts into repeat work across a portfolio. The tested items in a furnished let are the appliances the landlord supplies.

Landlords buy because supplied appliances carry a duty even though testing is not named in law, and because some local authorities include appliance testing records in HMO licensing conditions. Holiday lets and short-term rentals sit in the same group with sharper motivation: turnover is high, guests rarely report a faulty appliance, and some councils attach testing to the licence.

Workplace duty holders are employers and people in control of commercial premises. The duty sits with them directly, and in a small office it is one person’s decision rather than a procurement exercise.

Schools and nurseries manage classroom technology, catering equipment, extension leads and cleaning equipment inside a health and safety management system, which means the testing is scheduled rather than decided each year.

Community halls, village halls and churches admit the public to the premises, and their insurers routinely expect evidence of electrical safety checks. These are small accounts with a committee rather than a manager, and they are frequently under-served.

Hospitality venues … hotels, pubs, restaurants … carry a duty of care to visitors and face the same insurer expectation, across a much larger inventory of catering and cleaning equipment.

Facilities management contractors buy because they have taken the testing obligation on from a client and subcontract it out. They are slower to open an account and steadier once opened.

Each of those groups books at a moment, not continuously.

What Triggers a Business to Book PAT Testing?

Six events trigger a PAT testing booking: the annual retest date, a change of tenancy, an insurance renewal, a licensing or audit deadline, a new site or refurbishment, and an incident. Knowing the event matters more than knowing the buyer, because the event is what makes an unanswered email get answered.

The annual retest date is the structural trigger. Most sites settle into a yearly cycle, which is what turns a single job into a returning account and why the second year of a testing business looks nothing like the first. Recording every client’s retest date is the highest-return admin task in the business.

Change of tenancy is the letting-agent trigger, and it is not annual. A property turning over means the supplied appliances get checked between tenants, and an agent handling a portfolio generates these continuously.

Insurance renewal is a calendar event that puts electrical safety evidence in front of a duty holder once a year. Licensing and audit deadlines do the same for HMOs, schools, care providers and public venues.

New premises and refurbishments are the underrated one. A business moving site or fitting out a floor takes delivery of a batch of equipment that has never been tested and has no register behind it, which is a larger first job than that client will ever place again.

An incident … a failed appliance, a small fire, a near miss … produces urgent work and a client who stays.

Knowing the moment is only useful if the approach is ready for it.

How Does a New Tester Approach These Buyers?

A new PAT testing business approaches buyers in a fixed order: certificate first, insurance second, calibrated instrument third, then contact. The order is not arbitrary. Every buyer group above asks for evidence of competence before instructing, and an insurer asks for it after an incident. Approaching a letting agent with the certificate in hand converts; approaching one with a promise to obtain it does not.

Send three things rather than a description of the service: evidence of competence, evidence of public liability cover, and a sample report with the identifying details removed. The sample report is the most effective of the three, because it is the only one that shows the buyer what they actually receive at the end of the job. Duty holders are buying a document they can produce later, and showing them the document answers the question they have not asked yet.

Ask for the retest date rather than the job. A duty holder who has already booked this year’s testing cannot become a client today, but they can become a diary entry for eleven months’ time, and that question gets answered when a request for work does not. Over a first year that list of dates becomes the business’s actual pipeline.

Two shortcuts are worth taking. Local electricians regularly decline portable appliance work because it does not pay against their day rate, and a standing arrangement to take their referrals costs nothing to set up. And existing trade contacts … a previous employer, a site you already work on, a managing agent you already know … instruct faster than any stranger, because the competence question is already answered.

Winning the job and discharging it are two different problems. The second one is where the paperwork lives.

What Records and Certificates Does the Business Issue?

A PAT testing business issues an equipment register listing every appliance tested with its result, and a certificate confirming the inspection and testing carried out. The register is the asset: it records each item’s description, location, identifier, test result and retest date, and it is what makes the second year’s job faster than the first.

PAT testing software handles the register, generates the certificate as a PDF, and issues retest reminders on the dates recorded. A spreadsheet does the same job more slowly and without the reminders, which is workable for the first few accounts and a constraint after that. Test labels and a label printer complete the set, since the label on the appliance and the line in the register have to match for either to be worth anything.

Record-keeping is a taught part of the work rather than an afterthought, which is why a course covering it properly matters more than the price difference between courses.

Why Do New PAT Testing Businesses Fail?

New PAT testing businesses fail for four reasons, and none of them is a shortage of demand.

• Undercutting. Pricing below the range described above does not win volume, it removes the margin that covers calibration, insurance and unbilled travel.
• No retest calendar. A tester who does not record retest dates rebuilds their client base from scratch every year instead of inheriting it.
• Treating admin as optional. The report is the product. A late or sloppy report loses a repeat account that the testing itself had earned.
• Selling the wrong story. Telling duty holders that the law requires annual testing works until it meets a buyer who knows it does not, and the account goes with it.

Do you need to be an electrician to run a PAT testing business?

No. You need training and to be assessed as competent, which is what an accredited one-day course provides. No prior electrical experience or qualification is required to sit one.

Do you need a licence to start a PAT testing business?

No licence exists for PAT testing in the UK. What buyers and insurers ask for is documented evidence of competence, which is the certificate rather than a permit.

Can you run a PAT testing business part-time?

Yes. The annual retest cycle spreads work across the year rather than concentrating it, and many testers start alongside existing employment before moving over. The fixed costs, calibration and insurance, apply at any volume.