I now see plenty of examples of decisions to charge premium prices to appear like a quality outfit without a corresponding inclination to offer a premium service.

Couldn't agree more. There is no automatic correlation between price and quality. Anyone who thinks there is will soon find that they have been taken for a fool, and parted from their money. 

…

Sadly, this is an area that has suffered from the aforementioned cynicism. I now see plenty of examples of decisions to charge premium prices to appear like a quality outfit without a corresponding inclination to offer a premium service. All too often now one can pay top dollar for shoddy work.

I also think we as a society haven’t helped ourselves. I often hear of people recognising one tradesperson may be offering a good service for a fair price but still go with a cheaper quote and keep fingers crossed on what quality they end up with. That’s not an excuse for cowboys; just an observation.

Its also made me doubt the country as a whole. If the politicians really want to "build a million new home"  "install 600,000 heat pumps a year". We've not got the population to do this competently.  

Sadly that is true.  There are various reasons of course amongst which I would include:

• We, the public, don't really respect manual work of any kind (other than surgery), and thus its not viewed as a worthy career.  So people who have the potential to be skilled tradesmen are tempted to look elsewhere
• We have little meaningful technical/vocational education and praise academic achievement over artisanal achievement
• We left the EU, a ready source of at least a reasonable amount of skilled labour
• The trades themselves have too little CPD
• The cult of celebrity
• A relatively low unemployment rate coupled with the above

Much of this (with the exception of leaving the EU) has been going on for decades under successive governments.  Unfortunately its at least in part cultural.  Valuing manual trades is not particularly compatible with our delusions of empire!

Its also made me doubt the country as a whole. If the politicians really want to "build a million new home"  "install 600,000 heat pumps a year". We've not got the population to do this competently.  

And it’s led me to a bigger question. Is this just us? Or has there been a real decline in tradesmanship and professionalism?

My own experience has always been that 'bringing in the trades' is a lottery, but I do also think it has got worse, particularly with apparent engagement followed by no show. My last experience was in the summer, when a gardener I had taken on finally announced after other excuses that his equipment couldn't take the heat. I was tempted to say he was working in the wrong kitchen.

These people are a real nuisance. It might take weeks to shortlist and then select a trade, and finally book them in, only to have a sting of cancellations until the inevitable walk-away. In the case of the gardener, the whole process took over a month, nearer six weeks. A lot of wasted effort on my part, only to get back to square one, weeks after I started. My biggest gripe is why can't these people say no at the beginning? it would save a lot of time, not just for me, but also for them. 

The big change as I see it is that recent* ‘no shows has been ‘empowered’ by the ability of the hapless tradesperson to so easily ‘shift’ their next appearance just by tapping a few keys on a mobile phone to send a text message disengaging them from their contracted agreement, press send on the phone and walk away without a further thought.

This may sound harsh; I realise it does not apply to all and that perhaps I am using too wide a tarbrush! Like you Mars, we select our tradesmen, we are polite, friendly, helpful, honest with them and pay well and promptly (as we have discussed in private correspondence before now). A good worker should be respected and treasured! Regards, Toodles.

* Recent, ie., the last 15 years or so.

I found electricians and plumbers very busy and are harder to get on site but that is probaly because I only need them for a few days at a time and if another trade is late I have to push them back or not book a fixed time in the first place. This makes it harder to fit my project in around their other work, but that is the usual case with smaller jobs. The people who have been here for long periods, most of the building trades, once they are on site were easy to keep working here until the job was done.  When they move on it is harder to get them back to finish off even with very good builders who take a lot of pride in their work and aren't only here for the money. I have found older people are more flexible, I guess they don't need to work every day to pay the bills so much, but they are more fixed in their ways and just do what they do which isn't always helpful. Those who aren't great I don't ask back, but I've not really had to deal with that.

Being on site as part of the team I have had and heard a lot of conversations and I think even good people struggle to balance work loads, deal with over runs and problems that arise. They might be trying to keep regular customers happy because it brings in the main income but that customer expects work to be turn round quickly especially if there are emergencies.  I found a few people who don't fully book too far in advance to allow for this but most tradespeople are trying to fill their working week a reasonable distance in advance as they want a regular income. Others do a lot of bigger jobs then try to fit other things around that.

Small jobs, the kind of things that take a few days or less and are expected to happen on a certain day aren't so easy to fit in for some tradespeople especially if they spend a reasonable amount of time working on larger jobs or for a few regular customers. Timings are often moving around as so many things affect how long a job takes. I haven't used people who do mostly smaller jobs direct for homeowners so my experience may not be in quite the same area but I have experienced a lot of very good tradepeople but they don't always turn up when they initailly plan to and most jobs seem to take longer than expected.

As an example of different types of people, I've had one plasterer who tries very hard to stick to times he had agreed and not ring a few days in advance to move the date, especially when it was a few days work in someones house. The other plasterer was more fluid and although he would make contact if he wanted to rearrange a time he didn't think it an issue to move days around at short notice.  But, most of the time I would choose the second one as the finish was better, he takes a lot of pride is his work and he's going to charge a fair rate.  The first one was much more expensive when quoting for jobs direct with householders but he would turn up when he said and get the job done quickly, although it may not be as well finished as it could be.

I also have a builder finishing off the driveway and paths around the house but I don't think he really needs to work many days any more. He is very good at what he does but he turns up when it suits him, doesn't do wet days so it is taking a long while to get things finished.  I could move on and find someone else but we are nearly there and the path to the front door should be finished before the family head over for Christmas!