{"id":40378,"date":"2026-05-19T07:53:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T07:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/40378\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T07:53:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T07:53:30","slug":"the-truth-about-the-shortage-of-tradespeople-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/40378\/","title":{"rendered":"The truth about the shortage of tradespeople in the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\tA homeowner on the popular AskUK Reddit community<\/a> has asked if there is a shortage of tradespeople in the UK \u2013 and the responses from both tradies and customers are illuminating.<\/p>\n

The original post says that most tradespeople they\u2019ve dealt with \u201care either turning work down or are telling you it\u2019ll be several weeks before they get round to you\u201d. They go on to say that their usual plumber is booked up for at least two months.<\/p>\n

The popular post has received hundreds of responses, from both tradespeople and customers, confirming that there is plenty of work out there for most trades, although the situation varies depending on the region and the trade.<\/p>\n

One commenter even suggested that tradespeople are so busy they \u201ccan\u2019t be bothered with the hassle of small jobs\u201d.<\/p>\n

An electrician said: \u201cI\u2019ve work booked up till end of July and only squeeze in old customers for emergency work. I\u2019m starting to take jobs on now for August \/ September.\u201d<\/p>\n

A carpenter \u2013 and site foreman \u2013 wrote a lengthy comment detailing some of the issues in the industry that have led to this shortage: \u201cFirstly training is poor. The introduction of the NVQ system and the government dictating training requirements rather than City and Guilds has destroyed standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commenter goes on to say that the perception of trades in the UK \u2013 something the InstallerBUILD report<\/a> highlighted \u2013 does not help: \u201cUK trades people suffer a terrible image problem. Partly self inflicted and partly from society at large.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the continent being a tradesperson is a respected profession. Something to be encouraged and professionals are proud of their skills. Here trades people are often looked down upon, have their knowledge and craft taken for granted and the public (not all) want what they saw on social media for nothing and done in no time at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last point from this commenter says that practising a trade and running a business is tricky and not something most tradespeople are taught and it can be difficult to juggle the two.<\/p>\n

Another tradesman agreed with this point, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s actually really hard to find the right kind of work. Employers offer low wages for relative experience, poor working conditions and lots of aggro. Contracting for a company is a roll of the dice whether they\u2019ll pay you at all, let alone correctly or on time. Companies constantly going bust and renaming to avoid debt. Going self employed is a nightmare. Customers don\u2019t want to pay enough to cover tax, a pension etc so have to work for peanuts and do all admin, costing quotes etc in own time unpaid. And there\u2019s still always someone willing to do it cheaper. Regardless you have to keep a vehicle and tools and pay overheads like insurance and living costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you think? Let us know on Instagram and TikTok @installershow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A homeowner on the popular AskUK Reddit community has asked if there is a shortage of tradespeople in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[11700,5928,5,6],"class_list":["post-40378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-reddit","tag-skills-shortage","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116600163684733426","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}