Brits Spent 13% More On DIY In 2015

The amount of money Brits spent doing up their houses increased by 13 per cent last year, with the total equating to £5.8 billion.

More and more homeowners are choosing to renovate their properties, fit LED light panels or install an extension, according to the latest findings from Lloyds Bank.

The overall cost of home maintenance reached £7.38 billion in 2015, the highest levels since 2008.

Lloyds Bank mortgage products director Andrew Mason said more people doing DIY was a sign of growing spending on home improvements, stating: “This indicates a growing confidence in the housing market and wider economy, in stark contract to the sharp fall in spending between 2007 and 2011, which reflected the worst of the economic and housing downturns during this period.”

Spending on home improvement tools and equipment rose by five per cent last year, increasing from £4.8 billion to £5.1 billion. The amount spent on materials grew by 13 per cent, reaching £0.7 billion in 2015.

However, Brits only spent £1.6 billion on tradesmen services between 2014 and 2015, a decline of 15 per cent.

While lots of people seemingly prefer to do maintenance work themselves, Aviva found 54 per cent have required the services of tradesmen simply to help them fix DIY jobs that have gone wrong.

Despite the huge increase in DIY spending last year, homeowners spent more on improving their properties ten years ago. In 2005, Brits forked out as much as £8.6 billion on home improvements, 15 per cent more than in 2015.