This work provides an overview on the current status of phenomenology and searches for heavy vector-like quarks, which are predicted in many models of new physics beyond the Standard Model. Searches at Tevatron and at the LHC, here listed and shortly described, have not found any evidence for new heavy fermionic states (either chiral or vector-like), and have therefore posed strong bounds on their masses: depending on specific assumptions on the interactions and on the observed final state, vector-like quarks with masses up to roughly 400-600 GeV have been excluded by all experiments. In order to be as simple and model-independent as possible, the chosen framework for the phenomenological analysis is an effective model with the addition of a vector-like quark representation (singlet, doublet or triplet under SU(2)) which couples through Yukawa interactions with all SM families. The relevance of different observables for the determination of bounds on mixing parameters is then discussed and a complete overview of possible two-body final states for every vector-like quark is provided, including their subsequent decay into SM particles. A list and short description of phenomenological analyses present in literature is also provided for reference purposes.