You can review, enable, or disable non-essential cookies at any point during your visit.
1. What Are Cookies?
Cookies are small text files placed onto your computer, smartphone, or tablet when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work properly, improve user efficiency, enhance platform security, and deliver reporting information to site operators.
Cookies may be "session cookies" (which expire automatically when you close your browser) or "persistent cookies" (which remain stored on your device until a designated expiration date or until manually deleted).
2. How We Use Cookies
Hire UK uses cookies for four main purposes:
Crucial for security, CSRF protection, session integrity, and remembering your consent state. Cannot be disabled.
Remembers your chosen postal district (e.g. within Greater United Kingdom), recent searches, and saved trade favorites.
Aggregated, anonymous metrics on how visitors navigate the directory, search for trades, and page loading speeds.
Measures the effectiveness of local search campaigns and referral partner promotions.
3. Comprehensive Cookie Audit Table
| Cookie Name | Provider | Purpose | Duration | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PHPSESSID | hireuk.trade | Maintains secure session state, flash messages, and CSRF authentication. | Session | Strictly Necessary |
| active_site_id | hireuk.trade | Remembers your current regional directory context across navigation. | Session | Strictly Necessary |
| hireuk_cookie_consent | hireuk.trade | Stores your granular cookie consent preferences (accepted categories). | 365 Days | Strictly Necessary |
| hire_favs | hireuk.trade | Stores your bookmarked local tradespeople on this device. | 180 Days | Functional |
| __cf_bm / _cfuvid | Cloudflare | Bot mitigation, malicious traffic filtering, and DDoS prevention. | 30 Minutes | Strictly Necessary |
| _ga / _ga_* | Google Analytics | Anonymous visitor counts and page speed measurement (Consent required). | 2 Years | Analytics |
4. Managing Cookies in Your Browser
In addition to our interactive consent tool, you can block or remove cookies through your web browser's privacy settings:
- Google Chrome: Settings → Privacy and security → Cookies and other site data.
- Apple Safari: Preferences → Privacy → Manage Website Data.
- Mozilla Firefox: Options → Privacy & Security → Enhanced Tracking Protection.
- Microsoft Edge: Settings → Cookies and site permissions → Manage and delete cookies.
Note: Disabling strictly necessary cookies in your browser may impair the core quote request form and directory navigation.