Can flooring expand and damage skirting?

Yes the floor is a floating floor design and does expand and contract with different room temperature. The floor should never have been fitted against the skirting, an expansion gap between 8 -12mm depending on product should have been left and a scotia beading fitted over expansion gap. The only section of floor that will look fitted tight should be in doorway openings, these should have been undercut I hope this helps

There should always be an expansion gap of about 10mm around a floating floor like this... If fitted inside skirting then beading is usually fitted to hide the expansion gap. The best way to fit the floor is to remove skirting , lay the floor with an expansion gap and then hide this gap by refitting the skirting over the gap. I’m afraid that it appears that whoever fitted your floor lacked this experience. To fix use a multi tool to cut an expansion gap in the floor tiles allong 2 of the elevations of the wall at 90 degrees to each other then hide these gaps with beading that should be attached to the skirting and not the floor.

it sounds like there is no expansion gap or a poor one. there should be 10mm gap around everything and a scotia used to cover this , door linings and architrave should be undercut for a professional finish. it sounds like poor fitting as this is basic thing to know if you fit floating floors. i would recommend reporting him to my builder if found here as this is not good to have on a site that recommends trade people. as anywhere one or two will slip through the net. and i would recommend looking for another tradesman to undertake further work. most will be happy to provide photos of work done and have happy customers who will be happy to give a good recommendation.