The Installer Show 2025: Innovation Strategies in Place But There’s Work To Do

The uncomfortable reality: Many products are too good for the markets that they serve and the engineers who instal them.

The conversations I had weren't about which heat pump is best, or which bathroom suite offers the greatest margin. Instead, many manufacturers I spoke with shared the same frustration: "We've invested millions in carbon-cutting, energy-saving technology, but we can't find engineers capable of installing it properly."

This isn't just a skills gap – this could well be a strategic short full.

The Training Crisis: What Your Competitors Are Doing

Two global HVAC directors I spoke with are taking radically different approaches to this problem, and one is likely to win.

The Old Guard Approach: One company is desperately trying to retrain existing installers, investing in training centres and repositioning their sales teams as technical educators. It's expensive, slow, and fighting against decades of ingrained habits.

The Revolutionary Strategy: Their competitor has written off the old guard entirely. They're going straight to colleges and training centres, capturing young engineers before they develop bad habits. It's faster, cheaper, and strategically brilliant!

I suspect the latter will flourish in five years.

The Heat Pump Paradox: Government Policy vs Market Reality

John Hancock, COO at Wolseley, along with the rest of the panel provided huge insight during Nathan Gambling's panel: Engineers are getting heat pump training, then immediately reverting to gas boiler installations.

For context, the government is subsidising product adoption (£7,500 grants) while completely ignoring the infrastructure needed to support it. No standardised maintenance protocols. No training support for engineers. Furthermore, only one manufacturer offers proper strip-down and rebuild courses.

In combating this, Nesta is literally giving away free heat pumps to newly trained engineers just to get them to install one at home. When you're giving away your product to create confidence, you know the market fundamentals are broken.

The Marketing Mistake That's Killing Innovation Adoption

Here's a pattern I've noticed recruiting leaders across HVAC and bathroom sectors (along with the wider building products industry) over the past two years: Companies bring in commercially aware directors to better position products and identify NPD opportunities. Given the conditions of the market, this is clearly a smart move.

However, then they slash marketing budgets and eliminate Marketing Director roles entirely.

Reflecting on this, my feeling is that you can't solve an awareness problem by reducing awareness investment. Customers don't understand the difference between products because manufacturers have stopped explaining it to them.

AI: A Genuine Game-Changer?

Everyone's talking about AI integration into their product ranges. Upon listening to a talk in the afternoon, one speaker highlighted the power AI provides in easing workloads of self-employed engineers, thus providing them with more time to win work and retrain. A win win.

Not only can AI simplify P&L calculations and everyday processes for these engineers, but because they work on similar projects and order identical products repeatedly, the distributor with the smartest recommendation engine will win. It's Amazon's playbook applied to industrial products.

The Chinese Question: Disruption or Distraction?

Several leaders highlighted that there’s an increased amount of Chinese manufacturers at the show, especially in heat pumps.

However, based on my experiences, I sense they will struggle to convince UK buyers to ultimately purchase with them; not because of quality issues, but because of the maintenance and support Chinese manufacturers will struggle to provide. When your installer base can't properly maintain domestic products, how will they handle imports with limited local support?

The Bottom Line

Based on my experience this week, The Installer Show revealed an industry with incredible technical capability but with some fundamental strategic blind spots. The companies that acknowledge these uncomfortable truths and act decisively will shape buying habits over the next 10 years.

What's your take on the above? I'd love to hear your thoughts and where, as a manufacturer, you’re staving off such pressures.