Reaching the Summit

It was great to catch up with so many people at the Glazing Summit yesterday, which was held once again at Edgbaston Stadium in Birmingham.

The agenda for the day covered a range of important industry topics, including the supply chain and the impact of energy prices, the ongoing issue of skills, recruitment and mental health and how the industry has responded to a raft of new building regulations.

There was also debate on the future of innovation and the challenges that businesses face in the wake of economic uncertainty and rising costs – as well as keynote presentations from retail expert, Peter Cross, former director of John Lewis and Waitrose, and Richard Harpin, CEO of Homeserve and one of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs.

A key takeaway from Richard’s presentation was the fact that windows, doors and conservatories now account for over 2 million searches on Checkatrade, including 132,000 calls a year and an average job value of £3,300.

In addition, we were also presented with some fascinating facts and figures courtesy of Insight Data’s ‘State of the Industry’ report, which revealed that the number of PVC-U fabricators in the UK has declined to 1,180, but the number of fabricators manufacturing aluminium had increased to 907.

The report also showed that the number of installation firms had also dropped to 11,996 – a record low –with builder fabricator numbers growing to 8,900.

In addition, Insight Data also published its lowdown of the top 100 fabricators and installers in the UK based on turnover, with Anglian and Safestyle topping the list at £121,605,000 and £113,191,000 respectively.

Look out for a full report on the Glazing Summit in the November issue of Glass Times.

If you were at the Summit and would like to share your thoughts on any of the debates or findings from the State of the Industry report, please feel free to email me at luke@glasstimes.co.uk