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needs some investigation, then that [booking] is being stretched out to probably three or four weeks, because they haven’t got the diagnostic technicians they need. There’s a quite a big difference between that and, as I would call it, standard SMR.”
The hold-ups are largely down to the technician shortage, which is not news. Headlines often focus on the paucity of those trained to work on electric vehicles – which unquestionably impacts the BEV-happy fleet market – but, irrespective of what powers the vehicle, seasoned technicians are just scarce, while sluggish parts supply – depending on the vehicle and the component – can exacerbate the problem.
In November, the Institute of the Motor Industry’s (IMI) Automotive Vacancies Report, which analysed September figures from the Office for National Statistics, said there were 20,000 vacancies in the motor trade – equivalent to 3.5 for every 100 employees.
Job postings reported in the IMI’s Labour Market Report – 51% of which were for vehicle technicians, mechanics, and electricians – decreased by 38% year-on-year in July 2024. The organisation attributed it to “a mix of factors… including employer apathy and recruitment fatigue after failed hiring attempts, combined with caution due to economic uncertainty.” Speaking to Business Car in 2023 – which underscores the issue’s longevity – Justine Bates, then HR director at dealer group Inchcape (she moved to an equivalent role at rival Group 1 in August 2024), explained that the company had looked as far afield as the Philippines as part of its technician recruitment process.
“It’s not necessarily a retention issue. Once we are able to attract and bring technicians into the organisation, they tend to stay with us – it’s just bringing them in.”
The shortage is not confined to automotive, either. Demand from other sectors for technicians with transferrable skills means they often leave for more lucrative positions elsewhere. “When we have lost technicians, the reason is they’ve been poached, and they’ve gone outside the sector,” adds Bates, “the remuneration strategy they are offered is really quite extreme, so much so that you wouldn’t be able – as an automotive retailer – to compete with some of those salaries that are being offered, particularly in the railways and some of the big aviation companies, like Boeing or Bombardier.
“There is massive demand coming from those sectors, and I think as we’ve come out of the pandemic, those types of industries and organisations have started to accelerate some of the work.”
Then there is the time it takes to carry out the repair. Epyx’s data suggests average vehicle- off-road times (VOR) – the period between a
Above: Long waits for diagnostic tests are graphically illustrating the industry's shortage of technicians.
Above: Repair backlogs are increasingly reshaping how fleets and drivers manage vehicle downtime.
vehicle entering a garage and the completion of the work – have slightly improved, but from a low base. In November, it said they had moved from an average of 1.73 days in mid-2023 to 1.66 days, but that is still behind January 2020’s figure of 1.54 days. Meadows describes them as “undoubtedly a post-pandemic phenomenon,” with a “very real impact on fleet operations.” The costs are not limited to the workshop, either, because fleets could well be looking at a rental vehicle while the primary one is out of action. “It’s not just the fact that the vehicle’s off the road, it’s that they probably have to put the person
Service and mainteance costs at three years/30,000 miles Total
Service
PHEV ICE
BEV
£1,886 £1,430
Source: Cap HPI; values exclude VAT Tyres
who would have been driving that vehicle into a hire car,” says Montacute, “so you’ve got the rental cost as well, because that person’s still got to be mobile.”
Brakes Others £1,242 £231
£730 £891 £146 £119 £529 £659 £137 £105 £943
£0 £68
Elsewhere in the SMR world, the great ICE versus EV debate rumbles on – and the losers are plug-in hybrids. At £1,886 excluding VAT, three-year-old PHEVs at 30,000 miles are 31.9% more expensive on SMR than equivalent ICEs (£1,430) and 51.9% dearer than BEVs (£1,242), according to November figures from CAP HPI. The disparity is most obvious in servicing, where PHEVs (£730) attracted a premium of 38% over ICEs (£529) and 216% over BEVs (£231), due to their shorter service intervals and because they are more likely to come from premium brands. “From an SMR cost perspective, they [PHEVs] have all the negatives of an ICE vehicle,” explains Steve Chambers, senior editor for SMR at Cap HPI, “they’ve still got that petrol motor – or occasionally one or two of them have diesels – but, fundamentally, you’ve got to put oil in them and that’s one of the biggest issues.
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