Pest: The Independent Magazine for UK Pest Management Professionals
Pest is an independent British trade magazine written for the people who control pests for a living. Published six times a year, it delivers news, technical features and practical advice to pest control companies, local authority pest teams, manufacturers, distributors, consultants and researchers across the United Kingdom and, increasingly, around the world.
Styling itself the independent UK pest management magazine, Pest has built its reputation on being run by industry insiders rather than generalist journalists. Its founders spent decades in pest management communications before launching the title, and that practitioner perspective shapes everything from its coverage of pesticide resistance to its long-running reader-voted product award.
Overview
Pest appears in print six times a year and is supported by a website at pestmagazine.co.uk and the Pest+ email newsletter. Each issue mixes industry news with in-depth technical articles, regulatory updates and coverage of the events, exhibitions and awards that structure the professional pest management calendar.
The magazine is published by Lewis Business Media, the Uckfield, East Sussex based business-to-business publisher whose portfolio also includes titles in agriculture, retail and the pet trade. Pest works closely with the sector's main bodies, including the British Pest Control Association (BPCA), the National Pest Technicians Association (NPTA) and BASIS, while retaining its independent editorial voice.
History and Founding
Pest was co-founded in 2008 by Frances McKim and Helen Riby, two of the best-known communicators in British pest management. Between them they brought formidable experience: McKim had launched the BPCA's Professional Pest Controller magazine in 1993 and served as its publisher and editor for 15 years, as well as holding senior roles in the industry, including a term as BPCA president in the early 1980s during her time with Fisons and FBC.
McKim and Riby ran Pest themselves for over a decade as its writers, editors and publishers, building it into what the BPCA later described as a leading independent source of information for pest professionals not only in the UK but around the world. Issue 65, published for October and November 2019, still carried the two founders at the top of the masthead as editor and publisher and associate editor and publisher respectively.
Publisher and Ownership
After more than a decade under its founders, Pest changed hands when Lewis Business Media acquired the magazine, its website and the Pest+ e-newsletter from Foxhill Publishing. As part of that change of publisher, Simon King, the editor of Over the Counter, also became editor of Pest, while McKim and Riby joined the title's technical advisory board, preserving the founders' expertise within the new structure.
Both founders were recognised with BPCA life memberships at the association's 2020 annual general meeting, an honour that acknowledged the significant contribution the pair had made to the sector through both Professional Pest Controller and Pest. Lewis Business Media, formed in 2012 by the Lewis family and based in Uckfield in East Sussex, continues to publish the title as part of a multi-platform business spanning print, websites, newsletters, events and awards.
Editorial Content and Sections
Technical depth is the magazine's hallmark. Features have tackled subjects such as the rise of pesticide resistance and how to manage it, the long-running saga of bird control and general licences, the maintenance of electronic fly killers, bed bug detection and management, and the implications of product withdrawals from the market. The magazine's 2026 media materials note that as favoured products are withdrawn, frontline technicians must use all their knowledge to select the right alternatives, a theme that runs through its technical pages.
Alongside the science, Pest covers the business of pest management: company acquisitions, recruitment challenges, new technology such as heat treatments, remote monitoring traps and drones, and the professionalisation of the sector. Industry news opens each issue, and event reports cover gatherings such as PestTech, the NPTA's annual exhibition, and PestEx, the BPCA's flagship show. The magazine also reports on market data, noting for example that there were 806 pest control businesses in the UK in 2024 and that the market was worth some £686 million that year.
Audience and Circulation
Pest is aimed at the whole pest industry rather than a single segment of it. Its own media pack describes a readership spanning pest control companies, local authorities, manufacturers and distributors, consultants and researchers, facilities companies and their staff. According to the 2026 media pack, the print circulation is around 2,700, with a further 2,400 online magazine readers giving a total readership of roughly 5,100.
The digital reach is notably international. Visitors from 160 countries accessed the Pest website during 2025, most of them on desktop computers, and the magazine maintains social media presences under handles including @PestMagUK. For advertisers, the appeal is a concentrated audience of practising professionals who specify and buy pest control products, rather than the general public.
Print and Digital Editions
The print magazine, published six times a year, remains the flagship, and back issues are archived as PDFs on the magazine's website, with editions going back many years freely readable. The website publishes news continuously between issues, covering everything from company takeovers and association announcements to recruitment drives and regulatory changes.
The Pest+ email newsletter extends the brand further, while the annual wall planner offered through the media pack underlines how the title embeds itself in the working year of pest control businesses. Digital readership figures are tracked separately from print, reflecting an audience that increasingly consumes technical content online as well as on paper.
Notable Editors and Contributors
Founders Frances McKim and Helen Riby defined the magazine's first era, writing, editing and publishing it themselves and setting its knowledgeable, plain-speaking tone. Their move to the technical advisory board after the sale kept their influence alive while day-to-day editing passed to Simon King, who has combined the Pest editorship with his role on Over the Counter.
Simon Lewis, group managing director of Lewis Business Media, is the publisher and a visible figure in the sector, chairing judging panels and fronting the magazine's awards activity. Contributors are drawn from across the industry: association executives, scientists, distributors and practising technicians all appear in its pages, giving the magazine the character of a conversation within the profession rather than reporting from outside it.
Awards and Recognition
Pest is the organiser of the National Pest Awards, run in conjunction with the BPCA, the NPTA and BASIS Prompt to recognise and reward the best in the industry. Formerly known as the British Pest Management Awards, the scheme honours categories including Pest Controller of the Year, Young Pest Controller of the Year, sole traders, small and large companies, local authorities and lifetime achievement.
The magazine's own Best Product Award is decided by its readers, who nominate and then vote for the product they judge to have made the greatest improvement to their working lives. Pest was also appointed media partner for PestExtra, the BPCA's three-day digital event held in March 2021 after the postponement of PestEx, underlining its central position in the industry's communications.
Recent Developments
Under Lewis Business Media, Pest has continued its six-times-a-year publishing schedule while expanding its digital and awards activity. Its 2026 media pack positions the magazine firmly behind industry calls to professionalise pest management, pointing to an ageing workforce, with industry bodies estimating that up to 40 per cent of technicians will retire within a decade, and the resulting recruitment challenge.
Recent editorial themes include consolidation, as larger companies acquire smaller ones, and the rapid adoption of technology from remote traps to drones. More than fifteen years after two industry veterans founded it around a kitchen-table model of publishing, Pest remains a fixture of British pest management: independent in voice, technical in content and read by the professionals who keep homes, businesses and public spaces free of pests.
