Do I Need a Licence to Be a Mobile Hairdresser?

There is no single UK-wide licence requirement for hairdressers. The national uniform hairdresser-registration regime was removed by the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. However, some local authorities retain their own hairdressing/barbering byelaws that still require registration — in our research, Oadby & Wigston and Stockton-on-Tees councils both confirmed this, while Tower Hamlets and Lichfield explicitly confirmed no registration is needed, citing the 1994 Act. Where a byelaw does exist, at least one council (Newcastle-under-Lyme) stated its equipment/hygiene provisions apply to mobile operators too, even though it was written with fixed premises in mind. Separately, 'special treatments' licensing (tattooing, skin piercing, electrolysis, semi-permanent skin colouring, acupuncture) is a different regime and generally does not cover ordinary hairdressing — it only becomes relevant if you also offer one of those specific treatments. The honest answer is: this is genuinely council-by-council, and no national dataset currently exists that tells you definitively either way. Our £49 Kit includes a Local Council Licence Check Checklist to help you ask your own council the right question and keep a record of the answer.