BUSINESS CONFIDENCE AMONGST UK TRADESPEOPLE BOUNCES BACK FROM PANDEMIC LOWS

• Latest industry insights from Screwfix show marked improvement in confidence among tradespeople since December 2020

New industry insights from Screwfix, the omnichannel retailer, has revealed that business confidence amongst UK tradespeople has more than quadrupled in the last 12 months.

Screwfix’s Business Confidence Index is part of its monthly Trade Pulse* survey, which includes a range of measures.  All these measures rose in December 2021 when compared to December 2020 figures.

The overall confidence score** saw a dramatic increase from +8 in December 2020 to +35 in December 2021. This has held steady since June 2021.

In addition, the December 2021 insights show that 38% of tradespeople reported increased business activity in the last 12 months compared with -8% in December 2020 and 21% in June 2021. There was also increased optimism around future business activity, with 41% expecting business to ramp up over the next 12 months.

This was a slight decrease from June 2021 (52%), with the rise in the Omicron variant of COVID-19 a possible factor.

The proportion of trades without work remained low at 4%, with 82% of the trade now working with further work lined up.

John Mewett, CEO of Screwfix, commented: “The latest Trade Pulse figures show a stark contrast to the year before, and it’s really encouraging to see UK tradespeople are feeling confident about the future of their business. Despite the challenges of the last couple of years, our index shows most UK tradespeople are not only busy, but also lining-up future projects.

“To support our customers in getting their jobs done, and keep pace with demand, we are committed to providing our customers with what they need, when they need it, and through their preferred shopping channel. For this reason, we continue to focus on convenience, whether that’s through our Click & Collect service in as little as one minute, Screwfix Sprint, which enables delivery to home or site within 60 minutes or, simply opening more stores to bring Screwfix even closer to tradespeople, with over 770 stores across the UK and Republic of Ireland.”

*Screwfix Trade Pulse is an index which surveyed 455 UK tradespeople to track work levels and optimism among the trade.

**Four questions feed into the Business Confidence Index. A net score is calculated for each measure e.g., for “What do you expect business activity to be like over the next 12 months?”, the percentage of those saying their activity has got a lot or a little worse is subtracted from the percentage saying their activity has got a lot or a little better. These net scores for each measure are shown in the monthly Trade Pulse report. The score for the index is then calculated by taking an average score of the four individual net scores feeding into each index.