AI in the trades, 29 October 2026
How UK tradespeople are using AI: what 28 firms told us
Of the 28 small UK trade firms we spoke to between July and October 2026, at least 14 already used ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot every day, mostly for quotes, emails and pricing. That is far above the official picture: the ONS puts AI use in construction at 13%. Most owners use AI as a chat window they copy and paste from, not as part of how the office runs.
How many tradespeople use AI?
Officially, not many. In the ONS Business Insights and Conditions Survey for June 2026, about 35% of UK businesses with 10 or more employees used at least one AI technology, up from around 12% in late 2023. Construction sat at 13%, one of the lowest of any industry.
ONS: AI in UK businesses, 2023 to 2026, BICS wave 159, 5 to 28 June 2026
Our calls tell a different story, and the gap is worth explaining. The ONS asks whether the business uses AI technology. A roofer who pastes a customer's email into ChatGPT on his phone in the evening may well answer no, because in his head the business doesn't use AI: he does, on his own account, after hours. The firms we spoke to were also people who had found an AI product and booked a call, so they lean towards early adopters. Read our numbers as "what AI use looks like among owners who are interested", not as an industry rate.
Who did we speak to?
Twenty-eight firms, on 54 calls with Nexley's founder between July and October 2026. Most were 1 to 15 people: roofers, electricians, heating and gas engineers, builders, groundworkers, a fire protection contractor, a metal fabricator and a signage engineer. The largest turned over about £1m a year. One was in Northern Ireland and one in Ireland.
These counts are the number of firms that raised a topic unprompted or in answer to an open question. A firm could raise several. We didn't ask a fixed set of questions, so a firm not mentioning something doesn't mean it isn't a problem for them.
| What came up on the call | Firms (of 28) |
|---|---|
| Owner is the bottleneck; admin in evenings and weekends | almost all |
| Quoting is slow (merchant prices, rate cards, options) | about 15 |
| Already using ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot daily | at least 14 |
| Xero not showing the real position; receipts, bills | about 12 |
| Tenders and take-offs | about 10 |
| Frustration with job management software | about 9 |
| Missed enquiries across phone, WhatsApp, DMs | about 8 |
| Distrust of lead-gen and marketing spend | about 8 |
| Don't know which jobs make money | about 7 |
| RAMS and health and safety paperwork | about 5 |
| Data safety, lock-in, "will you exist in a year?" | about 5 |
Topics nobody raised: Making Tax Digital, retentions, the late payment bill, the Building Safety Act. That doesn't make them unimportant. It tells you what keeps owners up at night, and it's paperwork volume, not regulation.
What do tradespeople use AI for?
The jobs owners hand to AI are the ones that eat their evenings: pricing and quote wording, emails, tender questions and health and safety documents.
What we heard, firm by firm:
- Quotes and pricing. A Cambridge carpentry and building firm told us "I've started using ChatGPT to price jobs." A property developer with two directors and four or five live sites had built an Excel sheet with AI on top and prices "most jobs within 30 minutes".
- RAMS and construction phase plans. A hard landscaping builder used Claude most, because a RAMS and construction phase plan "takes me a couple of hours… for every job".
- Copying and pasting. A heating engineer in Northern Ireland with about 700 gas customers used ChatGPT by pasting text in and out of his job software.
For a fuller list of uses and the tools themselves, see the AI for tradesmen guide.
We've noticed hallucinations. I'm taking screenshots all the time and posting it.
Where does AI let tradespeople down?
Three complaints came up again and again: it makes things up, it doesn't know your prices, and it lives in a separate window from the rest of the business.
It makes things up. The developer above had paid for ChatGPT for 18 months and still checked every figure. A general AI tool will produce a confident price per square metre or a building regulation clause that isn't real. See what to do when AI gets it wrong and why ChatGPT quotes go wrong.
It doesn't know your rates. Unless you give it your rate card, materials prices and margin every time, it guesses from what it has read online. That is how you end up with a quote priced for somebody else's business. The fix is to set the rules up once: see teaching AI your rate card.
It's another window. Owners described screenshotting, pasting into Word, then retyping into Xero or their job software. The AI saves the writing, then the owner spends the time saved moving text between apps. A heating engineer in Northern Ireland was afraid to change systems because his job software had no open API and held six or seven years of customer records.
What did firms want AI to do that it couldn't?
Mostly, act inside the business without being asked each time. The wish list was practical and specific.
- A national groundworks firm was deducting CIS by hand and had used seven suppliers for one three-day job, which took about 20 phone calls.
- A gas engineer and his wife wanted quotes chased at 7 and 30 days without anyone remembering to do it.
None of these is a writing task. They're office tasks: knowing the price list, sending the follow-up, filing the bill. That is where general chat tools stop and why owners were looking at something else.
Should you start using AI in your trade business?
If you're doing quotes, emails or RAMS in the evenings, yes, start this week with a paid general tool and one job. Pick the task that costs you most hours and give the AI your own examples.
The approach that works is to treat it like a new starter who needs your price list, your templates and a clear rule about what goes out without you seeing it. Our live guide on cutting admin time covers the other habits that free up evenings.
Where Nexley fits
Nexley is the AI back office for UK trade firms: five AI assistants run your tenders, quotes, buying, scheduling and invoicing. It connects to the tools you already work in, you run it all from WhatsApp, and you approve everything. £799 a month.
Nexley is built for the office side of a trade firm rather than a chat window. It keeps your rate card, suppliers and templates, works from WhatsApp messages and voice notes, and drafts quotes, replies and supplier orders for you to approve before anything goes to a customer.
Common questions
Is this a survey of UK tradespeople?
No. It's what 28 firms told us on 54 sales and onboarding calls between July and October 2026. They had all shown an interest in AI, so they're more likely to use it than the average trade firm. For the national picture, use the ONS figures.
Which AI tool do tradespeople use most?
ChatGPT was the tool named most often on our calls; Claude and Copilot also came up. One property developer had paid for ChatGPT for 18 months. Most owners described copying and pasting between the AI and their other software.
Why is AI use in construction so low?
In earlier ONS analysis, firms facing barriers most often cited difficulty identifying a use for AI, cost and lack of expertise. Our calls suggest another reason: owners use it personally on their phones, so they may not count it as the business using AI.
Is it safe to price jobs with ChatGPT?
Only if you give it your own rates and check every figure. On its own it guesses at prices from general web content. Treat its numbers as a draft and compare them with how you price a job.
Sources
- ONS: Artificial intelligence in UK businesses, 2023 to 2026
- GOV.UK: AI in UK businesses (statistics announcement, 20 July 2026)
- ONS: AI in UK businesses release page
Every rule, rate and date above was checked against these sources on the date shown at the top.
Topic: AI in the trades
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