Wickes PLC warned today that it might take over a year to get a tradesman in to do any odd jobs or bigger tasks around the house.
The builders' merchant said that a quarter of the tradesmen it talks to regularly are booked until 2023, with most of the 630,000 tradesmen on its books “really busy” at the moment.
"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," David Wood, chief executive, told Reuters.
A buoyant housing market is driving the demand, he added, with people keen to upgrade the houses they have just bought.
Wood was speaking after annual results that showed revenue went up 14% to £1.53bn and underlying profits by 72% to £85mln in the year to end December 2021.
He added the business was growing at twice the rate of the competition, helped by ‘price leadership in a highly inflationary market’.
Materials inflation jumped to 7% in the second half of the year from 3% in the first six months, but Wickes was performing well in difficult market conditions, he added.
The dividend for the year was reinstated at 10.9p.