The Next Three Months Are Vital

For England and Wales, this is the week schools go back after the summer holidays. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, they are already back.

This is also the week that traditionally the industry sees an almost immediate uptick in business activity as people seek to complete projects before Christmas and Winter sets in.

But this year has been far from normal. Anything we assumed we could rely on from previous years cannot be assumed for 2025.

Crucial Quarter

Even before the school summer holidays, the general commentary, even from some of our industry bigwigs, was pretty blunt. Summer was quiet.

Then we headed into the school holidays, which is always our sector’s quiet period, other than Christmas. For once, the remarks about the sector from most parts of the industry appear to be on the same page.

This is a good thing. Acceptance of the situation we are in, acknowledging we’re in a bind, rather than pretending everything is fine, means we can be clearer-headed about the difficulties coming down the road. It means we can plan better and be more creative.

This coming quarter is going to be vital in all sorts of ways. We would normally expect the next couple of months to be busy, with homeowners rushing projects to completion before Christmas. In a more traditional market, we can usually see an uptick in business at the installer level, the same week kids go back to school in England and Wales. We’ll see if this year provides the same pre-Christmas rush.

We’re going to need it. Business activity has not been what we had hoped for in 2025. It has been more difficult than we would have liked. Labour have failed to provide any meaningful growth or improvement in living standards, and with a November 26th budget which is likely to see a raft of new tax increases, that trend may sadly stay the same.

But the reason this quarter is crucial is that it will determine whether some companies survive into 2026 or not. Q1 of the coming year is usually when most major bills, like VAT and corporation tax, require to be paid. It is the reason we sometimes see a rise in companies going under during this period, if they cannot meet those obligations.

A busy quarter will mean companies make it through another year. A quarter like the others may mean a different outcome.

Navigating events

The industry is going to have to put a real shift in if it wants to see results. And it is going to have to compete with an increasing amount of media noise around things like the budget, due to be held on November 26th, ongoing economic worries and battered consumer confidence. There is going to be a lot of noise to cut through.

For installers, it means making your arguments to invest in home improvements as compelling and as sharp as possible. There are still plenty of windows and doors out there that need replacing, but we’re competing against other markets and priorities, so ensuring your message to homeowners is clear and persuasive is going to be important.

Fabricators in turn need to give their installers as much help as they can get. Which will, in turn, benefit them as well. Arm installers with as much marketing material as they need. Give them the tools to do their job so that sales can flow back up the supply chain. The same is true when it comes to systems companies supporting fabricators. They too need the tools to do their jobs so that syscos can feel the benefit.

We know it won’t be easy. This year has been far from easy for anyone. It has not been the year anyone had hoped for. Filled with closures and market consolidation the likes very few of us have ever seen.

But that does not mean we cannot end the year on a better note, and perhaps begin the next one with a bit more momentum. As an industry, we have to try and drown out the negative noise from Labour and sell the dream of upgrading homes to homeowners as attractive and appealing to people as we can. Remember that people still aspire to improve where they live, even in a difficult economy.