Homeowners wait months longer than usual for bathrooms and kitchens to be installed as an industry-wide labor shortage exacerbated by Brexit collides with the DIY binge caused by Covid-19 lockdowns.
The pandemic has resulted in a huge spike in house and garden spending as the money traditionally spent on evenings and foreign holidays is put into room conversions. Installers are struggling to meet demand, however, and lead times for new kitchens, bathrooms or cabinets have increased from a pre-Covid norm of four to eight weeks to 12 to 18 weeks.
Damian Walters, executive director of the British Institute of Kitchen, Bedroom and Bathroom Installation (BiKBBI), said there was “an unprecedented demand for kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms, and for home improvement in general”.
The lead time extension was the result of “an incredible labor shortage,” he said, adding that the trade organization had been inundated with requests from retailers eager to hire more fitters. There were a number of problems, including an aging workforce and a shortage of young people willing to start training. Brexit had also prevented craftsmen from moving to the UK to work.
“There will be no craftsmen dropping out of Europe or anywhere else,” said Walters. “EU migration was a bit like a band-aid being ripped off and the real problems of which were exposed.”
The performance of B & Q, the UK’s largest DIY chain, provides a barometer of the magnitude of demand. Revenue rose 13% last year as a cordoned off nation focused on DIY projects ranging from laying patios to flying over walls or picking new looks for kitchens and bathrooms before bringing in the professionals.
With strong demand and global supply chains still disrupted by the pandemic, contractors also had to grapple with bottlenecks, from plumbing supplies to screws, fasteners, power tools to white goods like washing machines and refrigerators that were needed to complete jobs.
In order to close the qualification gap in the industry, BiKBBI will start a campaign in autumn that is aimed at school leavers and aims to employ 700 trainees per year. Without new hires, the problem will only get worse as a third of sole proprietorships will retire in the next decade, according to a survey of 3,000 companies. Only one in six retirees had plans for someone to take over their business.
“We just haven’t focused on professional learning, and that has created huge problems in terms of a gap between the demand and the available labor for this type of work,” said Walters. “We have relied on an aging workforce for too long and they are now looking forward to retirement. We must pull out all the stops to prepare a new generation of skilled installers ready to take their place. “
Comments are closed.