Case Study - Edinburgh Leadcraft Ltd

Thursday 3 September 2026

Heritage leadwork, a team of nine, and a Scottish roofing award inside five years

Plenty of roofing firms will fit you a roof. Rather fewer will make the lead finial that goes on top of it by hand. Edinburgh Leadcraft works at the specialist end of the trade: lead roofing and flashings, cupolas and rooflights, leaded windows, traditional slating and tiling, and the ornamental leadwork that keeps an old building looking like itself.

The company was founded in October 2021 by Stephen Higgins and Gordon Finlayson, who had already worked together for years before setting up on their own. It began as a two person specialist heritage roofing business. It now employs a team of nine and works across Scotland, the Borders and parts of northern England, from a base at Musselburgh on the eastern edge of the city.

The part of a roof nobody looks at until it leaks

Lead is the material the rest of a roof leans on. It sits in the valleys where two slopes meet, around the chimneys and the dormers and under the ridges, and it is usually the first thing to fail when it has been fitted badly or patched cheaply. Doing it properly is hand work, because the lead has to be beaten to the shape of the thing it covers and there is no off the shelf part for a curve.

That is the ground Edinburgh Leadcraft chose, and it takes the firm a long way past ordinary repairs. Cupolas, finials, leaded windows and ornamental pieces are made up in the workshop, alongside the traditional slating and tiling, the flat, felt and single ply roofing, the guttering and the roof surveys that make up the rest of the week.

Sixteen shortlistings and a win

Recognition has come quickly. The company has won a Scottish NFRC Roofing Award and has been shortlisted sixteen times across four award bodies: the Scottish NFRC Awards, the UK NFRC Awards, the Pitched Roofing Awards in three consecutive years, and the Meistari Roofcraft Awards. Five of those shortlistings have come in 2026 alone.

For a business founded in 2021, that is a great deal of attention from its own industry in a short space of time, and it is the industry rather than the customer doing the looking. Both matter, and they measure different things.

Keeping the skills in the trade

Three of the nine are apprentices, which for a firm of this size is a serious commitment rather than a line on a website. The company also supports National 5 courses in schools and gives public demonstrations at events including the Edinburgh Heritage and Building Festival.

Heritage roofing is a small field and a slow one to learn. It runs on lead dressed by hand to fit a curve nobody drew, slate matched to what is already on the building, and details that a great many roofers will never be asked to make. It is also the corner of the trade with the fewest people coming into it.

None of that is spare time activity. Traditional leadwork only exists for as long as somebody is still teaching it, and the people who can dress lead by hand are not replaced by ordering a part. Training the next few is the same job as preserving the buildings.

Why join a Trading Standards scheme

The reasoning for joining Edinburgh Trusted Trader was practical: raise the company's profile, generate more enquiries, and give a customer something firmer to go on than a review score alone. Reviews say what other customers thought of the work. A Trusted Trader listing also shows that the council's Trading Standards service looked at the business itself before it went anywhere near the directory.

That combination is what the company was after, and it is what has made the difference at the point where a customer is choosing between quotes.

“Scheme membership has been a deciding factor in many of our quotes being accepted, with a substantial number of new clients finding us directly through Trusted Trader.”

13 reviews sit on the profile at an average of 4.9 out of 5, left by customers on the Trusted Trader site rather than gathered by the company, which is what makes them worth reading.

What Trading Standards check, and what they do not

Edinburgh Trusted Trader is run in partnership with City of Edinburgh Council Trading Standards. Before a business is accepted, Trading Standards check the business and the people who own it: complaints history and the intelligence held on Trading Standards databases, Citizens Advice consumer service records, Advertising Standards adjudications, Companies House records and the disqualified directors register, the insurances held, terms of business and advertising, the authenticity of reviews, and a face to face interview at the trader's own premises.

What Trading Standards do not do is inspect anybody's workmanship. That division is deliberate and it is worth understanding. The council checks that the business is who it says it is and has behaved properly. The customers, in the reviews on the profile, say what the work was like.

A year on the scheme

Membership has met and exceeded expectations. There has been a noticeable increase in enquiries, more reassurance for clients during the quoting process, and more credibility when a proposal is put in front of somebody. A good number of clients have said the accreditation was what decided them.

The badge does not sit in a drawer either. It goes on the vans, on the business documentation, on the website and social media, and in the email signatures, so a customer often recognises the business as Trading Standards vetted well before reaching the Trusted Trader website. Membership has also given the company the confidence to take on more apprentices and to put itself forward for more award submissions.

Where it goes next

More staff, a bigger apprentice programme, a wider set of award entries and more involvement in traditional skills training. Behind all of it is the thing the business was set up to do in the first place: heritage roofing done properly, and the skills to do it handed on to somebody else.

Stephen Higgins and Gordon Finlayson
Co-Owners, Edinburgh Leadcraft Ltd

Questions we are often asked

What work do Edinburgh Leadcraft take on?
Specialist heritage leadwork, lead roofing and flashings, cupolas and rooflights, leaded windows, traditional slating and tiling, flat, felt and single ply roofing, guttering and roofline, roof windows and roof surveys.

What area do Edinburgh Leadcraft cover?
From a base at Musselburgh on the eastern edge of Edinburgh, the company works across Scotland, the Borders and parts of northern England.

Has Trading Standards checked the business?
Yes. Edinburgh Leadcraft Ltd has been an Edinburgh Trusted Trader member since 2025, on a scheme run in partnership with City of Edinburgh Council Trading Standards, and the business and its owners have been vetted by Trading Standards. Trading Standards do not inspect or approve individual jobs, so the workmanship is judged in the verified customer reviews on the profile.

• View Edinburgh Leadcraft's Edinburgh Trusted Trader profile.
• Read Edinburgh Leadcraft's verified customer reviews.
• If you would like to become a Trusted Trader, you can apply here.
• If you are a Trusted Trader and would like to leave a case study either as text or as a video, get in touch.