I’ve been looking into property auctions in the UK recently, and one thing that struck me is how fragmented the market is. You’ve got the big national names, then regional specialists, and somewhere in between a whole bunch of firms that have been doing this for decades without much publicity.

Here’s a list of companies I came across. Some are household names, others you’d only know if you’ve actually sat in an auction room or bid online at 11pm on a Tuesday.

Auction specialists

These are the firms that exist primarily to sell property at auction:

  • Allsop
  • Auction House UK
  • Acuitus
  • Bagshaws Residential
  • Bond Wolfe Auctions
  • Clive Emson
  • Countrywide Property Auctions
  • Dedman Grey
  • Drivers & Norris
  • Essential Information Group
  • Graham Penny Auctions
  • John Pye Property
  • Lambert Smith Hampton (also a broad property services firm)
  • Maggs & Allen
  • Martel Maides Auctions
  • McHugh & Co
  • Nock Deighton
  • Osborne King
  • Paul Fosh Auctions
  • Phillip Arnold Auctions
  • Pugh Auctions
  • Roger Hannah & Co
  • SDL Auctions
  • Strettons
  • Sutton Kersh Auctions
  • Symonds & Sampson
  • Walker Singleton
  • Webbers
  • Wilsons Auctions
  • Clough & Co
  • Cumbrian Properties
  • Future Property Auctions
  • Scargill Mann & Co

Estate agents with auction arms

Some of the bigger estate agency brands have folded auctions into their operations:

  • Barnard Marcus
  • Cheffins
  • Harman Healy
  • iamsold
  • Romans
  • William H Brown
  • Andrews & Robertson
  • Cottons

The big commercial names

These are primarily commercial property firms, but they run auction programmes too:

  • Savills Auctions
  • Jones Lang LaSalle
  • Knight Frank
  • Parsons Son & Basley

Online-only players

  • BidX1
  • Network Auctions

It’s worth noting that Rightmove and Zoopla don’t really belong on this list – they’re portals, not auctioneers. But they dominate the search traffic for property in the UK, so I kept them in mind when I was thinking about what “property companies” means in this context.

The whole thing is a reminder that the UK property market isn’t one market. It’s dozens of them, layered on top of each other, and the auction route is its own little world with its own rules and regulars.