Customer Focus: Kitchens | 23
SUMMARY
■ The fitted kitchen sector was impacted by a range of adverse external factors in 2023
■ New build housing’s share of the fitted kitchen product market declined to 16.7% in 2023
■ The specialist market is constrained in volume sales by fitter availability
■ Indicators are that suppliers continued to find business a struggle in 2024
SWITCHING TO SIMMER
The UK kitchen market saw installations fall from 2023, through 2024, but consumers are still willing to pay for their dream design, says the latest JKMR report on the sector. Mike Jeffree picks out some of its key conclusions
After enjoying its slice of the pandemic- prompted home improvement boom from 2021 through 2022, the UK fitted kitchen sector has found the last two years harder going. According the JKMR Overview Report on the UK Fitted Kitchen Market 2024, UK installations of fitted kitchens (including fitted units, worktops, sinks, taps, waste disposal units (WDUs), and integrated major domestic appliances (MDAs) hit an all-time high in 2022 of 1.277 million, topping the previous record in 2021 by 37,000. The initial impact of the pandemic was to stall construction work generally, including home improvement. Then, however, says JKMR, growing numbers of owner-occupiers re-evaluated their home requirements, with their houses by necessity becoming live-work space, and the kitchen in particular identified as key to this and “worthy of considerable investment”. But the market environment in 2023 was sharply different, with the fitted kitchen sector impacted by a range of adverse external factors.
Above: Naked Kitchens’ Wolferton layers texture and timber as a timeless colour
“Rising mortgage costs, allied to overall cost of living pressures, decreased the ability of some to invest in discretionary ‘big ticket’ purchasing,” says JKMR. “At the same time, uncertainty as to house price direction led others to question the value of investing in their property and delay or cancel plans for house moves, although house prices did ►
www.ttjonline.com | March/April 2025 | TTJ
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