To think some people are really snobby about tradespeople?

I think there needs to be some sort of rating system that is better than Check A Trade, similar to ratings by public health for restaurants. The council should give all builders a grade and then you know what you are paying for. I don't want another hi-vis bully boy standing at my door trying to make me hand over thousands to re-tarmac my drive just because he is in the area. I want to be able to expect value from handing over my savings. If you regulate better you will get a better opinion forming.

Because managing a business where you’re on the tools and doing all the admin and buying materials and being slated for not doing a full day IS hard. I’m a lawyer who works long hours but I do not work the sort of hours my electrician DP does.

My DP needs to go down to 4 days a week to be able to keep up with the admin. Imagine what the snobs on here would think of a trades person only working a 4-days week!

I think some people are snobby about any job that doesn't require a university degree. People certainly were when I used to tell them my job.
We have had the odd cowboy but generally the tradespeople I use have been highly skilled and do a good job but maybe that's because I treat them with respect.
I don't see any point in going to university if it's going to make you miserable.

Yes there was a thread a few weeks ago the Op was asking whst people thought a fully qualified mechanic would be earning as her son had just qualified
The amount of people who thought it would be minium wage or just over was enlightening, I think some posters cant grasp the difference with a qualified trades person and non skilled job.

I don’t know anyone who is snobby about tradespeople because they are tradespeople. Thinking an individual is incompetent or a arsehole is a different matter - and people may feel the same about an individual doctor or tax advisor. I find it hard to believe that it’s general consensus that tradespeople are poorly paid or financially unsuccessful as a class compared to the professions let alone compared to people working in transport, retail, hospitality, care etc. I know a zillion people who have had bad experiences with tradespeople ranging from the minor such as blatant lies about timescales, start dates, communication and general lack of straightforwardness (just fecking say if the job is too big/small. Is a pita, you don’t want to do it instead of pretending you are going to put a quote together), through misogyny, poor quality or careless work through criminal behaviour and sexual assault. You get poor behaviour in “the professions” too but often having a boss, or regulator or professional body puts a curb on things. If had good and bad experiences with tradespeople. I’ve also had good and bad experiences with people in retail, service industries, healthcare etc, not sure what is so special about the trades that we are all supposed to fall over ourselves claiming how marvellous they all are and be envious of their finances.

There is nothing wrong with academic success. “All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use”. Ditto the arts or political engagement or any kind of outward facing mindset. It’s bizarre to me that you think people only value education due to snobbery rather than because it has an inherent value.

I get that most of us have or know someone that's had a bad experience with a tradesperson but I'd argue many of us have had bad experiences with managers and yet we don't brand all of them as incompetent.

But don't you think that the two are inextricably linked? The industry having a reputation for poor workmanship, bad time keeping, unreliability etc surely impacts people's perception of those who work within it and how skilled they are.

Well if you are looking at having work done and as you say aren't skilled enough to do the work, how can you check the guy doing it has done good work before? Word of mouth. Even then, just because they fixed one person's issue no 2 houses are the same. The market is flooded with cowboys charging the earth with little experience or qualifications.

I'm pretty sure that the plumber, electrician and plaster who have recently completed work on my degree/masters educated DS's 1st house are all out earning him. Neither he nor I look down on tradespeople as we frequently use them to do jobs we would in no way be able to tackle. We are lucky enough to live in an area where it's pretty easy to get recommendations and weed out the cowboys though!
And I have never been talked down to by tradesmen in my house - and I've dealt with many. Kwik fit and garages though - well that's a,different story!

What I find with tradespeople isn’t that they are thick. Not by a long shot. & they earn a really excellent living, which should be obvious to anyone with a brain by how much you have to pay them for a days work!

What I will say is finding one with business acumen is like gold dust. They seem to really struggle with managing their workload, bookkeeping, people skills. Not all of course, but enough that it’s a breath of fresh air to meet one who has their shit together beyond just being really skilled in their trade.

Someone could be a really skilled hairdresser but if they were always late for your appointment, never answered their phone when your tried to make appointment, don’t turn up for your appointment, push your appointment back by a week, miscalculated the cost of the service, didn’t order the dye in on time for your appointment etc you’d start to think “FFS you’re an idiot” regardless of how skilled a hairdresser they are.

Nail on the head. It's not because they get dirty, it's because too many of them are incompetent or don't respect your home. Good ones really are like gold dust.

We just had a lot of work done at home and there's only the plasterer I would recommend to friends. He was the most expensive quote we had but he came highly recommend and was very professional, tidy, turned up at 8:30am and left at 3:30pm every day, was respectful in our home (didn't swear, make a mess, upset the neighbours etc). He just did what he said he would do.

Conversely I have just had to take a load of the builders' equipment to the recycling centre because after chasing them multiple times over the last 6 months they still didn't come and get it. Ladders, rubber mats, buckets etc. When they were here they swore loudly and constantly for all the neighbours to hear. They left mess and rubbish everywhere. They kept disappearing for days at a time with no communication. On the days they did turn up, it was often gone 11am and they would never stay after 4pm, usually before 3pm. Always an hour for lunch regardless of how little time they'd been on site. The job dragged on for weeks and weeks beyond their estimate and we had multiple instances of delays due to them ordering the wrong materials.

Out of 4 trades we used, only 1 was up to scratch. And that's the ones we actually engaged. Over half of the trades who said they would come and quote for us just didn't turn up to the appointment. My friend just had a full renovation at her house and ended up taking two trades to court (and winning). She says she wouldn't recommend anybody she used. These experiences are not rare.

I think it's definitely true that people are snobby about tradespeople but fucking hell, as an industry they don't help themselves and it must be very damaging to the ones who are professional, reliable and competent. In my experience they are in the minority.

There really isn't a correlation between cost and quality. Some of our most expensive jobs (where we've deliberately chosen a mid-quote or higher-quote) firm or person, have turned out to be the worst jobs for one reason or another. Local showroom and reputable looking firms are often the worst because they have the "image" but then sub contract the work to the cheapest guy they can find. And of course, the customer has no control over the subbies used by such firms as few have their own permanent full time staff. That happened when we had a boiler replaced - again reputable local firm with a showroom, but the subbie they sent was appalling and after we'd complained, the showroom's owner admitted it was the first time they'd used that guy and wouldn't be using him again. Thanks a bunch for making us his guinea-pigs!

I don't think people look down on them as much as they are wary because often work isn't done very well and needs repair soon after or causes more damage. The cost of having any manual labour done at the moment is astronomical and the risk of it making issues worse is what often gives trades people a bad name, if they have done bad work.

It's not a "handful" though. In our 30+ years of owning our house, I'd say the vast majority of tradesmen we've had either for quotes or given work to have been disrespectful or incompetent.

And no, that's not by choosing the cheapest. A few of the worst were actually more expensive and were local "reputable" firms with showrooms, etc., one being a very expensive highly respected independent kitchen showroom and the other being a GasSafe registered gas fire showroom - both of whom did an incredibly shoddy and dangerous job! The gas fire guy actually installed it wrongly meaning dangerous fumes/gases were being released - he came back several times but kept saying there wasn't a problem - it was only when we got the manufacturer's engineer to come and check it over that he immediately condemned the installation and disconnected it!

Another so-called respectable local landscape gardening firm sent a couple of guys who botched up the replacement of our decking and if that wasn't enough, one of the neanderthals went to our loo and wiped his arse on our towel!

Another time, another respected local double glazing firm with a showroom managed to screw up what we asked for which was an identical "like for like" replacement of our glazed back porch. Wrong colour, glass panels instead of plastic, and then refused to change any of it!

As I say, good ones are like gold dust. We've a brilliant electrician (semi retired but he still does odd jobs), a wonderful joiner who can make a cupboard into a perfect work of art (again semi retired) and an excellent plumber (another older guy). As for decorators and gardeners and "odd job men", to be honest, we do it ourselves these days as we've never had anyone we'd be happy to have back. Decorators in particular tend to be very shoddy so we've learned to do our own and can produce a much better quality job. Same with the garden, for bigger jobs, we now hire in power tools and do it ourselves instead of getting people in to do things like replacing fencing posts/panels etc, laying slabs, and we even replaced the botched decking ourselves and did a far better job than the knuckle draggers that the respected local firm sent us.

It’s obvious why some clueless people look down upon tradespeople. Many trades make you a little dirty and people associate dirty with low class.

funnily middle class and upper class gentleman farmers or artisans that some posh person has taken up after a miserable year in the city is considered ok by them.
and someone like Monty Don although covered in dirt or some ex banker turned carpenter/furniture maker is considered middle class ahd not looked down upon

I'm a graduate, I work with graduates, I know there's nothing about having a degree, in itself that makes you special, in fact I wonder how they managed to pass quite often!

I had a couple of men round to do some garden work yesterday. I am very impressed at what. They managed to get done in the time. I have huge respect for good honest work.

Agree with this! DP constantly gets told his fees are too high but then spends a lot of his time fixing jobs that have been done on the cheap. If you know how to rewire a house and are regulated to sign off the works do it. Otherwise pay the costs of someone who actually does know how to do it.

If you have always had bad tradies I suspect you are the cause of your troubles. I highly suspect you seek out the cheapest person around and then are amazed that they are shysters. I also suspect when highly qualified and experienced tradies quote you scoff at their prices and think they are trying to overcharge for what you obviously think of as an unskilled easy job.

DH is very clever and could have easily went to uni but it wasn't for him. He went into an apprenticeship and trade and he bought his first house at 24 with a pretty big deposit. They definitely aren't thick... I have no idea how to do any of the stuff they do 🤣

Yeah 100% when in reality an electrician (for eg) can earn an immense sum of money, especially if they choose to work abroad.

It makes me laugh when people get uppity about the cost of a quote to complete a task, that they themselves don’t have the skills to do.