Installer skills gap crisis | ANALYSIS
It doesn’t take much to ruin a reputation, and that could easily happen when the industry is under so much pressure to rush through jobs to get on to the next one
Mark Conacher, managing director of Liberty Fitting Service, Dundee
immense pressure on existing installers but, perhaps more worryingly, has brought into the open an issue that has always been there – a critical shortage of new installers.
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The lack of installers is a multifaceted issue. There aren’t enough new ones coming through and the results of a recent BiKBBI survey revealed that this is compounded by that fact that a third of sole-trader installers plan on retiring from the industry within the next 10 years, and less than 10% of employers believe there is a good supply of qualified installers currently available. This brings about issues not only with time scales but also with quality of workmanship. “We’re really seeing the effects of
the skills shortage at the moment – right across the board,” explains Damian Walters, CEO of The British Institute of Kitchen, Bedroom and Bathroom Installation (BiKBBI). “Reports from our members suggest that lead times on kitchen, bedroom and bathroom fits are currently between four and five months, simply because the demand far outweighs the number of installers available to complete the work. Those time frames are unusual for this time of year – in fact they’re unprecedented – and the results of this could be very problematic for us as an industry, as the quality of work and, therefore, hard-earned reputations are at risk if retailers are forced to bring in just anybody to complete the work.”
The reality of course is that this isn’t
a new debate or anything we didn’t already know about. Experts, like Walters, have been warning the industry of an impending installer skills gap crisis for years. That’s not a result
November 2021 ·
he continued surge in demand for KBB reno- vations is not only putting
Less than 10% vocational over the past 20 years.
“This situation has magnified an existing problem because we haven’t got enough installers to meet the demand,” Walters adds. “The reality is that we didn’t before either, it’s just that all of this pent-up demand has exposed a problem that already existed.” Aside from retailers having to deal
with consumers frustrated by delays to their KBB projects, the knock-on effect of this situation is that existing installers will be under even more pressure to get the job done. With this demand, the industry runs the risk of very experienced, quality fitters tempted to expand their businesses too quickly with less skilful staff. “You spend years building up a quality business with a good reputation
of employers believe there is a good supply of qualified installers currently available
of the Covid pandemic or Brexit – what these two challenges have done is simply expose the real issue of a lack of investment in
learning
and suddenly, because of the pressure we’re under due to the demand, it becomes so easy to push that on to our guys and telling them to cut corners, etc,” warns Mark Conacher, managing director of Liberty Fitting Service, Dundee.
“It doesn’t take much to ruin a reputation,
and that could easily
happen when the industry is under so much pressure to rush through jobs to get on to the next one. We’ve got to keep those standards high and find that balance.”
A change in attitude Brexit and Covid may have created a perfect storm, highlighting the crisis in a totally unavoidable way, but has that actually done the industry a favour in the long term? While the problem hasn’t thrown up any overnight solutions, we have seen progress in the form of a change in
attitude from the entire industry. “If I’m to take any positives away from what’s happening at the moment it’s that we have seen the industry sit up and take note,” explains Walters. “The BiKBBI is a bit like a lifeboat on a brand new ship. While the seas are calm and everything is great, nobody pays any attention to us but, when the water gets a bit choppy, everyone starts to focus on the lifeboat as the potential solution. “We’ve had more interaction and feedback from the industry over the past 18 months than we probably have in the 14 years prior to that. It’s like people have suddenly realised installation is more important to their business than they originally thought.” While that change in attitude is great for recognising and understanding the issues, it suggests that the industry only cares about the issue when it directly affects them and their
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