Are traditional trades dying out?

An illustration of the current need for specialist trades and how hard it is to find them, has been found in one of our most recent surveys.

The question of niche trades and their importance is something which was discussed in 2006 as part of the BBC's 'Restoration' programme. At the time, 86,000 people worked in the built heritage sector but demand was outstripping supply with 6,500 additional recruits needed each year to keep up.

An illustration of the current need for specialist trades and how hard it is to find them, has been found in one of our most recent surveys. Seventy percent of those surveyed said that it was a struggle to find the type of tradesperson they needed with only a handful saying that they had no trouble at all. Another indication of this decline in specialist tradespeople is that some respondents said that they had to rely on more general firms to do traditional work, sometimes with undesirable results and problems. Demand, however, was not shown to have fallen with just over half of people saying that they were planning to use a specialist tradesperson in the future.
It was also recorded that some respondents had lost their niche tradesmen to retirement which suggests fewer people are going into more traditional crafts as a career and the skills gap is widening. In the thatching industry there are now around 100 fewer registered thatchers operating across the UK compared to figures in 2006.

Yet another trade, chimney sweeps may well be suffering from fewer people entering the trade. In an interview I had with Mr Leonard, a Master Chimney Sweep, he maintained that the demand for sweeps is greater but in his past 40 years of service his area of operation has expanded greatly, from just a 10 mile radius to over a 30 miles, a sure sign that there are simply fewer chimney sweeps around for people to call on.

It seems that at this stage there are enough in the traditional build sector, according to Dave Tyler of 'Jack in the Green', a traditional build company based in Cumbria. However, he believes more needs to be done to communicate the benefits and worth of traditional build techniques to the next generation:

"There has definitely been a breakdown of communication in terms of getting the values of our trades across to people. Traditional building techniques are essential in the maintenance of historic and listed buildings and within the development of eco-friendly construction which is becoming a more important, popular and therefore rewarding choice for architects, builders and self-builders alike. The lack of communication is mirrored in the lack of encouragement for young people to join our trades and make a great living from them."

So it's not really the case that niche trades are dying out in terms of demand. It's more to do with the apparent lack of interest in getting into these sorts of careers. The solution must lie in the encouragement for young people to take up these skills or for these jobs to be promoted as second careers. In the current economic climate, there will be more who decide to get out of the rat race and choose something completely different as a job and it's up to the government and the industry itself to act on these people's ambitions to get them into the jobs where people are needed. With the introduction of Diplomas into the National Curriculum, it's hoped that more young adults will choose more vocational and skills-based subjects, some of which feed into the trades industry. Only time will tell if these factors will have a lasting impact on these trades that are still clearly very much in demand.