NEWS EXTRA
TRADE CONFIDENCE DECLINES, ACCORDING TO TP SURVEY
Every quarter builders merchant Travis Perkins surveys the nation’s tradespeople to get their views on future workloads, materials purchasing plans and insight into the type of work they are carrying out for customers. BMJ looks at the results from the October 2022 survey.
DESPITE THE GROWING macroeconomic uncertainty, the survey found it encouraging that a vast majority of the 900 tradespeople asked expected their workloads to either increase or remain unchanged in the next two months. That said, compared to the May report, confidence has declined.
Travis Perkins CEO Nick Roberts says that this is consistent with the slowing of demand seen in the third quarter trading amongst the smaller trade customer segment, although demand from larger repair and maintenance contractors held up well. “Not surprisingly, the key issues for our smaller tradespeople remain the rising cost of materials and concern for the wider economy. They are also still experiencing high transport costs and spending more time seeking out better prices for materials. The continued increase in consumer enquiries for projects that improve energy efficiency, such as improved insulation for cavity walls, lofts, walls and ceilings as well as heat pumps and renewables, will help consumers offset the pressures from rising fuel costs and demonstrates the vital role tradespeople have to
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play in the UK’s decarbonisation journey,” he says.
Roberts adds that Travis Perkins is well placed to support our tradespeople and other customer segments and help them to navigate an increasingly complex construction landscape, characterised by new environmental and safety legislation. ”Together we also have a great opportunity to accelerate the retrofitting of our older housing stock, as well as commercial property to improve energy efficiency and ‘level up’ our communities, so we improve the quality of people’s lives at the same time.”
The respondents are customers of Travis Perkins, CCF, Keyline and Toolstation, and include builders, plumbers, painters, decorators, kitchen fitters and landscapers, working in small to medium sized businesses; primarily in the domestic repair, maintenance & improvement sector.
The majority of of respondents remain optimistic about near term industry outlook with 78% of tradespeople expecting workloads to increase or remain unchanged in the coming months. Whilst majority of tradespeople are optimistic about workloads, this
has reduced by 15% vs the RMI Index Report published in May 2022 (from 93%), and 11% (from 89%) compared to October 2021.
Eight in ten (82%) of
respondents still expect their materials purchasing requirements to increase or to stay the same in the next two months. This compares to 94% in the RMI Index
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net December 2022
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