How to Find and Keep Good Tradespeople

Every trade business owner hits the same wall. The work is there, the phone keeps ringing, but you cannot take it on because you simply do not have enough good hands. And when you finally find a decent sparky, plumber or arborist, you spend the next year terrified they will leave for an extra quid an hour down the road.

Finding good tradespeople is hard. Keeping them is harder. But it is not luck, it is a system. Here is how to do both without losing your mind or your margins.

Why Good Tradespeople Are So Hard to Find

Before you can fix the problem, it helps to understand it. The shortage of skilled trades in the UK is real and well documented, and it is not going away. An ageing workforce, fewer apprentices coming through, and a wave of retirements have left genuine demand outstripping supply across electrical, gas, plumbing and arb work.

What this means for you is simple. The good ones are rarely sat at home waiting for your advert. They are already working, often happily, somewhere else. So your job is not just to advertise a vacancy. It is to become the kind of business that a decent tradesperson actually wants to move to.

That changes everything about how you hire.

Write a Job Advert That Filters, Not Just Attracts

Most trade job adverts are awful. "Electrician wanted, must be qualified, good rates, call this number." That advert attracts everyone and tells you nothing, so you waste hours on the phone to people who were never right.

A good advert does two jobs: it sells the role to the right person and quietly puts off the wrong one.

• Be specific about the work. Domestic rewires? Commercial maintenance? EV charger installs? A tree surgeon wants to know if it is mostly climbing or mostly ground work. Say it.
• Be honest about the money. Give a real range, not "competitive rates". Vague pay signals a business that haggles, and the best people skip those ads.
• Name the perks that matter to trades. Company van, fuel card, paid travel time, a decent tool budget, training paid for, no weekend call-outs. These often beat a small pay bump.
• State the non-negotiables. Required tickets, a clean driving licence, the patch you cover. This filters out time-wasters before they call.

You are not trying to get a hundred replies. You are trying to get five from the right people.

Look Beyond the Job Boards

The best tradespeople often come from places that are not a recruitment website.

• Word of mouth. Ask your current team, your suppliers and other trades you trust. Good people know good people, and a personal recommendation tells you more than any CV.
• Wholesalers and merchants. The folk behind the counter see who is reliable, who pays on time and who knows their stuff.
• Subcontractors first. Bring someone on as a subbie for a few jobs before you offer them a permanent role. You both get to test the fit with no long-term risk. If it works, our practical guide to managing subcontractors covers how to keep that relationship clean.
• Grow your own. Taking on an apprentice is a longer game, but it builds loyalty and lets you train someone in your way of working. It is worth weighing up whether an apprenticeship suits your business right now.

Pay Fairly, But Do Not Rely on Pay Alone

Money matters. Underpay and you will haemorrhage people, full stop. As a rough guide, you need to be at or near the going rate for your area and trade, and you should check what local competitors are actually offering rather than guessing.

But here is the thing every owner eventually learns: pay gets people through the door, it rarely keeps them. Once someone is earning enough to feel respected and cover their life comfortably, an extra 50p an hour elsewhere is not usually what tempts them away. What tempts them away is being messed about.

A tradesperson will tolerate a slightly lower rate for a business that is organised, pays on time and treats them like a professional. They will leave a top-paying firm that is chaos. Sort the chaos first.

Keep Good People by Killing the Daily Frustrations

Ask any engineer why they left their last job and you will rarely hear "the pay". You will hear about the daily grind: turning up to jobs with no information, customers who were never told they were coming, missing parts, getting calls all evening, and chasing the boss to find out where they are meant to be tomorrow.

That friction is what burns people out. And most of it is fixable.

Give them clarity, not chaos

People want to know what they are doing, where, and what is expected. When your scheduling lives in your head or scattered across WhatsApp messages, your team is constantly guessing. Running jobs through a proper system, where each person can see their own diary, the address, the customer notes and the job sheet on their phone, removes a huge amount of daily stress. If your operation still runs on group chats, it is worth reading why you should stop running your business on WhatsApp.

Protect their time

Good tradespeople have a life. Endless evening call-outs, last-minute weekend jobs and a phone that never stops will drive your best people out faster than anything. Be clear about hours, share the on-call load fairly, and respect their days off.

Remove the admin they hate

Most engineers came into the trade to do the work, not to fill in paperwork in the van at 7pm. Certificates, job sheets, photos and timesheets that take ten taps on a phone instead of a pad of forms make a real difference to how someone feels about their day. A platform like Gaffer lets your team capture all of that on site and have invoices raised automatically, so nobody is doing admin on their own time. Less paperwork is a genuine retention tool, and cutting it also reduces admin time across the whole business.

Build a Business People Want to Stay In

Beyond the day to day, people stay where they feel they are going somewhere.

• Show a path. A mate, then a lead engineer, then maybe running a second team. People who can see a future stay for it.
• Invest in their tickets. Paying for training and updating qualifications says you are in it for the long term, and it makes them better at the job too.
• Back them up. When a customer is unreasonable, stand behind your engineer (within reason). Nothing loses loyalty faster than feeling thrown under the bus.
• Say thank you. Genuinely. A word at the end of a hard week, the odd lunch on you, recognising a job done well. It costs almost nothing and it lands.

You are competing for good people against every other firm in your area. The ones who win are not always the highest payers. They are the ones who are organised, fair and decent to work for.

FAQs

How do I find good tradespeople in the UK?

Use a mix of channels rather than relying on job boards alone. Word of mouth, your suppliers and wholesalers, and trialling people as subcontractors first tend to produce better hires. Write a specific advert with an honest pay range to attract the right people and filter out the wrong ones.

How much should I pay to attract good tradespeople?

There is no fixed figure, as rates vary widely by trade, region and experience. As a rough guide, aim to be at or above the going local rate, and check what competitors in your area are actually offering. Remember that perks like a van, paid travel and training often matter as much as the headline rate.

Why do good tradespeople leave their jobs?

It is usually not about money. The common reasons are disorganisation, poor communication, too much admin, unfair call-out demands and not feeling valued. Fixing the daily frustrations and treating people like professionals does more for retention than small pay rises.

Should I hire an apprentice or an experienced tradesperson?

It depends on your capacity to train and your timeline. An experienced hire fills a gap quickly but costs more and may move on. An apprentice is a longer investment that builds loyalty and lets you shape their skills, but needs supervision and patience.