Work:
TrustMark
Skilled to build—ground-breaking policy research with tradespeople and SMEs
The challenge
The UK is facing a significant shortage of skilled tradespeople. As well as impacting homeowners seeking professionals for repairs and renovation, this presents a major barrier to the Government’s goal of delivering 1.5 million new homes and having the required labour to meet our Net Zero target. TrustMark, the UK government-endorsed quality scheme for home improvements wanted to bring a fresh perspective to the established consensus view that a skills shortage exists.
While most studies focus on the broader construction sector, this research specifically examined the Repair, Maintenance, and Improvement (RMI) sector, which is 90% composed of small and micro businesses. These businesses face unique challenges in recruitment and training due to their size and lack of in-house HR or legal teams. They are an underrepresented voice when policy is being designed.
The solution
Eureka! designed a research study, which we termed ‘The Big Conversation’, which matched the scale of this issue and would allow TrustMark to make authoritative policy recommendations. A bespoke survey was sent to TrustMark scheme members, Eureka’s ‘Voice of the Trade’ community, and 18 partner trade bodies and merchants. This was supported by inbound telephone interviews to widen participation. In total, 1,233 full survey responses were collected across the RMI sector—an unusually strong result for such a a hard-to-reach audience.
Key findings included:
- Strong appetite to recruit: 45% of businesses reported at least one current vacancy.
- Filling vacancies could add £9.6bn in revenue and £4.1bn in gross value added (GVA).
- The workforce is ageing fast, with around 39,000 businesses at risk of exiting the sector within 10 years.
- 55% of those nearing retirement would ‘give back’ through mentoring, training, or shaping the future workforce.
These findings informed four policy recommendations:
- Engage Future Talent – training providers and colleges should partner with experienced tradespeople who want to ‘give back’, helping to build a pipeline and attract under-represented groups.
- Simplify Recruitment – create an easy facilitation service that connects small firms with competent, pre-vetted candidates, reducing paperwork and fragmentation.
- Improve Access to Funding – increase awareness of training incentives and simplify applications so funding reaches small businesses that need it.
- Transition to Green Skills – with 79% of low-carbon firms reporting vacancies (42% severe), provide stronger support to retrain existing tradespeople into these roles.
A copy of the final policy report is available in our Reports section.
Feedback:
“We selected Eureka! as our research agency for our high profile ‘Skilled to Build’ thought leadership campaign after a thorough evaluation process. They became trusted partners who guided us through the design process and used their own extensive network of contacts across the RMI sector to complement our own. The project was a strategic success for TrustMark. It stimulated cross industry discussion about the increased contribution to the economy that could be possible if the skills gap were closed – and Eureka played a huge role in that! Dave and Rich supported the launch event at House of Lords and the campaign to disseminate the research findings via a series of events and industry roundtables.”
→ Avinash Rajan (Proposition Director)
Let’s bounce a few ideas around
If you’d like to talk through a challenge or explore what might work for your business, we’d love a chat. Get in touch, or feel free to have a further look around the site to see how our research helps solve real‑world business conundrums.