UK tradespeople losing ten working weeks a year to admin they could automate, survey finds
Posted by: electime 23rd March 2026
UK small business owners, including electricians, plumbers and builders, are losing an average of 8 hours every week to repetitive admin tasks, adding up to 384 hours per year, the equivalent of ten full working weeks. Among trades businesses, the problem is worse: 77% report doing their admin in the evenings after the working day ends, and nearly half do it at weekends.
The findings come from the UK Admin Drain Report 2026, a survey of 167 UK small business owners published today by HeyBRB, an AI automation consultancy for small businesses. The research covered property management, accounting, and trades businesses including electricians, plumbers, builders and heating engineers.
83% have never worked out what it costs
The survey’s most striking finding is that 83% of respondents have never calculated what their admin time costs their business per year. 38% don’t have even a rough figure in mind.
For a self-employed electrician working at an effective hourly rate of £45, 8 hours of weekly admin represents over £17,000 a year in time that isn’t being spent on billable work. For a small firm charging £65 per hour, the figure rises above £25,000.
Despite this, 54% of respondents spend less than £50 per month on all business software combined.
Invoicing and quoting top the list
When asked to name the one task they would most want to automate, invoicing and payment chasing came first by a wide margin. Among trades respondents specifically, “invoices and estimates,” “tracking paid invoices,” and “quote and invoicing” dominated the free-text answers.
The data backs up why. More than a third of all respondents spend over 20 minutes writing a single quote or proposal from scratch. For a tradesperson producing 6-10 quotes per week, that’s 2-3 hours spent writing documents that may never convert to paid work.
Invoice chasing carries its own drag. 47 respondents chase overdue payments between one and seven times per month, each chase taking 5-10 minutes and carrying the added cost of an awkward conversation with someone they need to keep working with.
Three in four have tried AI tools. Most got stuck.
75% of all respondents have tried an AI tool such as ChatGPT, Copilot or Claude in the past 12 months. But the conversion from curiosity to genuine time savings has stalled for many. 25% said AI saved time on some tasks but not the ones they needed most. 16% said the output was too generic for their business.
Among trades businesses, the adoption gap is wider. Nearly a third of trades respondents had never tried any AI tools at all, compared to a quarter of the overall sample.
Richard, founder of HeyBRB, said: “The data tells a clear story. Tradespeople aren’t anti-technology. An electrician will happily use an app to certify an installation or calculate cable sizes. But when it comes to admin, invoicing, quoting, chasing payments, the tools either don’t exist for their specific workflows or nobody has shown them how to set them up. So the admin gets done at the kitchen table after dinner.”
What tradespeople would do with the time back
The survey asked respondents what they would do if they recovered 8 hours per week. Among trades businesses, the most common answer was working fewer hours and having a better work-life balance, chosen by over half. The next most popular answers were taking on more clients without hiring and investing in business growth.
Across the full survey, 50% of all respondents said they would spend more time on the work they actually enjoy, and 49% said they would simply work less.
“The trade press talks about productivity tools in terms of growth. Take on more jobs. Earn more revenue. The survey says something different,” said Richard. “The first thing most business owners want is to stop doing admin at 9pm. Growth comes second. Relief comes first.”
What would get them to act
When asked what would convince them to implement AI automation, the top responses were: a free trial showing results before any financial commitment (46%), a worked example from a business in their industry (44%), and proof of HMRC and GDPR compliance (30%).
Only 13% said a recommendation from someone in their industry would be sufficient.
Methodology
The UK Admin Drain Report 2026 surveyed 167 UK small business owner-operators online in March 2026. Industries: trades businesses including electrical, plumbing, building and heating (13%), property management and letting (6%), accounting and bookkeeping (4%), and other service business owner-operators (77%). 53% were sole traders, 24% employed 2-5 people, and 12% employed 6-20. Margin of error at 95% confidence: approximately ±7.6 percentage points. All admin hour estimates use respondent-reported working hours multiplied by their reported admin percentage. Mean figures are quoted throughout.
