LONDON - Britain may be heading for its biggest drop in living standards since at least the 1950s, but there is still money around to spend judging by data from home improvement retailer Wickes, which said 25% of tradesmen it serves are booked-up into 2023.
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Wickes CEO David Wood said the retailer has about 630,000 local traders on its books through its TradePro scheme, and talks to about 3,000 of them a month to assess the market.
"One of the key questions we talk to them about is their pipeline of work and at the moment one in four of them are telling (us) that their pipeline of work goes into 2023," Wood told Reuters.
"They've got more than a year's worth of business booked up, they're really busy," he said.
Wood said record levels of housing transactions was driving demand.
"Normally six to nine months after you've moved into a home you really start to do the major projects," he said.
Wood was speaking after Wickes reported a 72% jump in annual profit.