The stereotypical British cowboy builder may be a thing of the past if a new website has anything to do with it.

Developed to allow professional, qualified tradesmen to auction their talents to the British public, eGenie.co.uk allows users to enter the kind of work they want done, and then choose the preferred tradesman from those who respond with quotes.
However, like other auction sites such as eBay, those offering their services are then rated by those who’ve used them – offering an ‘at a glance’ score.
Although new to the UK, eGenie is already popular in mainland Europe with countries such as Germany seeing 100,000 users registered and 40,000 tradesmen.