Which commercial groundworks and civil engineering contractors in Surrey and the commuter belt do AI assistants actually recommend?

We put the 13 questions a person in Surrey and the commuter belt asks before choosing a commercial groundworks and civil engineering contractor — cost, specialism, who to use, how to check them — to Claude, 3 times each, 39 answers in all, and recorded every firm the answers named. 24 firms in Surrey and the commuter belt were checked against those answers. 4 of them were named at least once. The rest were not recommended in a single answer. Below are the 4 firms named most often; the others are told their result privately.

The top of the table

Firms are ranked by the number of answers that named them, then by how many different questions. The top 8 of the 24 firms checked are listed (the top ten, or the top third, whichever is smaller), plus any firm level with the last one in; a rank number that is skipped belongs to a firm that is not named here: it asked not to be, or the name the assistants used is a trade body, a national chain or a description rather than a local firm. The assistants do not give identical answers twice, so a difference of one or two mentions is noise; being named on questions a rival is absent from is not.

A further 20 firms were checked and are not listed here: 0 named in at least one answer but below the cut, 20 not named at all. Each has a private report, sent to the firm on request and to nobody else.

Is this your firm? If anything here is wrong, or you would rather your firm were not listed, email hello@aether-agency.co.uk or use the contact form. We acknowledge within two working days, correct a factual error as soon as it is confirmed, and take a firm off the public page on request; the measurement itself is not changed, because it records what the assistants said on the day.

The questions we asked

1. Which groundworks contractors in Guildford work on commercial developments?
2. Which civil engineering contractors in Reading do drainage and groundworks for developers?
3. Which groundworks and civils companies in Basingstoke take on foundations and site preparation for commercial buildings?
4. Which contractors in Croydon build basements and concrete frames for developers?
5. Which civil engineering contractors in Crawley deliver roads, drainage and utilities for developers?
6. Which groundworks contractors in Slough work on industrial and logistics sites?
7. Which civils contractors in Dorking work for housebuilders and commercial developers?
8. Which contractors in Farnham provide drainage, hardstanding and external works for commercial sites?
9. We are developing a commercial site near Woking and need a groundworks contractor for foundations and drainage. Who should we speak to?
10. Which civil engineering contractors in Horsham work on highways and utilities for councils?
11. Which groundworks contractors in Epsom do demolition, excavation and site clearance?
12. Which civil engineering firms in Newbury work on public sector infrastructure?
13. Which independent civils contractors in Surrey are recommended by developers and main contractors?

How this was measured

• Date: 10 October 2026, the day the answers were collected. This is one day, not a trend; the index is re-measured monthly and each month’s date is shown.
• Sample: 13 questions × 1 assistant × 3 runs = 39 answers. 24 firms checked.
• Assistants used: Claude (Anthropic’s Sonnet model, through its API, with web search). Answers from these programming interfaces can differ from what the consumer apps show.
• Counting: a firm is counted when its name appears in an answer. Names are picked out of the answer text automatically, then matched to the firm list.
• What is public: the 4 firms named most often, by name. Every other firm’s result is private to that firm. A firm can have itself taken off this page on request (see above).
• Limits: the assistants vary between runs, so small gaps are noise. Firms that were not named may still be recommended by an assistant or a question we did not ask. National chains are left off the list. This measures what the assistants said; it is not a judgement of the quality of any firm’s work.