Updated July 2026 · First published May 2026

Which NZ city has the best tradespeople and professionals in 2026?

July 2026: we analysed 1,208 businesses across 18 categories and seven markets. Wellington edges Tauranga by 0.003 stars at the top of the table, but Tauranga still wins the most categories. Auckland, with more than triple any other city's reviews, finishes third.

Every month, Top5.nz recalculates rankings for tradespeople and professional services across New Zealand's major cities, using publicly available ratings and review data. We don't hand out awards or accept nominations. The data determines the result.

This update re-runs our May analysis with two months of fresh crawl data and a seventh market: Napier and Hastings, added to Top5.nz in July. The top of the table has changed. Tauranga, the May winner, has been caught by Wellington, and the gap between them is three thousandths of a star.

The city league table

We looked at the top 10 businesses in each of 18 categories across seven markets: 1,208 businesses in total. Ratings cluster tightly at the top, so even small gaps are meaningful.

Bar scale: 4.80–5.00.

A photo finish at the top

Wellington's top-10 businesses average 4.898 stars, Tauranga's 4.895. That is the closest result this analysis has produced, and the two cities split the honours: Wellington takes the table, Tauranga takes the most category wins.

Tauranga leads in: plumbers (4.92), electricians (4.96, tied with Wellington), roofers (4.94), mortgage brokers (5.00, tied with Wellington), property managers (4.87), and immigration advisors (4.96). Wellington's wins skew professional: house painters (4.98), house cleaners (4.96), financial advisors (4.99), plus the two ties. The pattern from May holds in one respect: smaller, tighter markets keep producing the highest ratings, with established operators competing on reputation rather than volume.

The Auckland paradox

Auckland has 50,593 reviews across its top-10 businesses in 18 categories, more than triple any other city. Yet it ranks third overall and wins just 2 of 18 categories: accountants (4.97) and lawyers (4.89).

More data, lower scores. There are a few plausible explanations: Auckland's market is large enough to support mediocre businesses that would struggle elsewhere; reviewers in a bigger, more anonymous city may be less generous; and with more businesses competing in each category, the gap between the top 10 and the rest is wider. None of these explanations is definitive, but the pattern has now held across every run of this analysis.

The newcomer: Napier and Hastings

Hawke's Bay joins the study for the first time, treated as a single market since Napier and Hastings function as one practical service area. It debuts fifth of seven on 4.875 stars and takes two categories outright: builders (4.99), the highest builder average in the country, and solar installers (4.97). Its lawyers sit last of the seven markets (4.66), which drags the overall average down. A two-win debut against six established markets is a strong start.

Property managers: NZ's most consistently complained-about profession

In every market, property managers are among the lowest-rated professions, and they top the 1-star complaint table nationally. The complaint rate has risen since May: 4.35% of all reviews for top-10 property managers are 1-star, up from 3.6%.

Bar scale: 4.60–5.00.

For context, electricians average 4.94 nationally and mortgage brokers 4.98. Even property managers in Tauranga, the best-performing market at 4.87, sit below what most other professions average at their worst. Hamilton's 4.65 is the lowest category-city average for any profession in the study.

Which professions generate the most complaints?

Across all 18 categories, 1-star complaint rates vary by a factor of 13. The pattern is telling: professions that handle high-stakes personal matters generate far angrier reviews when things go wrong.

Percentage of 1-star reviews across top-10 businesses in each category, averaged across all seven markets.

A disappointing house painter gets a 3-star review. A property dispute or a failed legal matter gets a 1-star review and a detailed account. The stakes shape the response. Mortgage brokers sit at the other end of the scale entirely: roughly one complaint per 300 reviews.

Mortgage brokers: the outlier

Where your city matters most

For most services, your city makes very little difference to the quality of the top 10. But for a handful of categories, the gap between the best and worst market is large enough to matter.

Roofers again show the largest city-level gap: 0.25 points between Tauranga (4.94) and Hamilton (4.69). Lawyers and property managers follow, with Hamilton at the bottom of three of the six widest-gap categories. For mortgage brokers and electricians, your city barely matters at all. The top 10 are consistently strong everywhere.

Category wins by city