Trade Legends | Construction Podcast

Karl Malone, founder of TopBuild Carpentry, joins the Trade Legends Podcast to break down the reality of scaling a bespoke joinery business, from 8 years of making £0 net profit to building a 10-man team and an advanced workshop. Leaving school with no GCSEs, Karl served his time on site before spending eight years running a subcontracting firm that looked booming on paper, but delivered endless s...

On The Trade Legends Podcast this week, we sit down with Rob Jenrick MP for a direct conversation about the issues hitting Britain’s tradespeople hardest, from stolen tools being openly sold at car boot sales to soaring fuel costs, tax thresholds and the collapse in apprenticeships. Rob begins by revisiting Hounslow Heath, where thousands of suspicious power tools were previously being sold in wha...

On The Trade Legends Podcast this week, James from MKL sits down for an honest, unfiltered look at the chaotic graft of growing a trade business, surviving betrayals, and navigating life on the tools. We kick things off with his bizarre run of 21 jobs by age 21—including a brutal one-day stint as a minicab driver for an intimidating pirate of a boss—then get into how years of stacking shelves, pul...

On The Trade Legends Podcast this week, Joe Baker (Screed Papi), founder of Second City Screed & Resin, sits down for an honest, unfiltered look at the brutal realities of running a modern trade business. We tackle the diesel price crisis squeezing trades up and down the country, the reality of spending £300 a week just to keep two vans running, and his genuine, warts-and-all experience of tri...

A former British Gas engineer turned self-employed plumber exposes what it's really like to take on the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, corporate heating giants, and rogue customers. We take it right back to the beginning: being written off on school report cards, surviving dead-end factory shifts, and the reality of a plumbing apprenticeship where 22 lads started and only one made it through. W...

On this episode of the Trade Legends Podcast, we’re joined by Kieran from Kobo Crete, a Devon-based business making cast stone and polished concrete products. Kieran explains how he worked his way up from production planning to running a precast concrete factory, helping produce everything from railway bridge components to seating for the Kia Oval. He also shares why he moved his young family to D...

On this episode of the Trade Legends Podcast, we’re joined by Ben Rudman, a driveway and landscaping contractor whose honest, no-filter videos have made him one of social media's most relatable tradesmen. Ben explains how he started his business at just 20 years old with little more than a Vauxhall Vectra, a spirit level and his son’s car seat on the back seat. He opens up about struggling at...

On this episode of the Trade Legends Podcast, we’re joined by Stick and Jack from Trademark Digital, the no-bullshit marketing agency helping tradespeople and construction brands connect with the people who actually buy from them. We start with the question every marketing agency is being asked: if AI can build websites, write social posts, create adverts and plan a business strategy, why do we st...

On this episode of the Trade Legends Podcast, we're joined by Karl Sparky, an electrician who's become one of the most recognisable sparks on social media. Karl left school with no plan beyond skateboarding and Tony Hawk's, scraped through his maths and English, and stumbled into electrical because he couldn't face sitting in an office. We take it right back to the start: stacking trolleys and wor...

On this episode of the Trade Legends Podcast, we're joined by Mike from Better Happy, an ex-Army Intelligence operative who's taken one of the more unusual routes into the world of trade business coaching. Mike joined the Army after waking up in a Worcester police cell with a hangover and no plan, spent five years in intelligence, including two tours of Afghanistan attached to the Special...

On this episode of the Trade Legends Podcast, we're joined by our first-ever flooring guest, Dan from Wellington Flooring, who's spent 19 years in the trade and built one of the most recognisable flooring brands on social media. Dan fell into flooring by complete accident, turning down a job at Abbey Road Recording Studios at 16 because he didn't fancy the train to London, before a chance meeting...

On this episode of the Trade Legends Podcast, we're joined by landscapers Nathan and Joe from Slade Landscapes, a Surrey-based duo who've turned a landscaping business into one of the most-watched trades accounts on social media. Nathan came into the trade the long way round, leaving school to train as a plumber before falling into landscaping and going out on his own at 24, while Joe nearly ended...

On this episode of the Trade Legends Podcast, carpenter Ben Bailey returns four years after his first appearance, and a lot has changed. When we first had Ben on the show, he'd just started out and was working with clients from Made in Chelsea. Since then, he's gone from cutting MDF under a gazebo on his driveway to running his own dedicated workshop, building bespoke carpentry and fitted furnitur...

This week on the Trade Legends Podcast, landscaper and content creator Tom joins us for his long-awaited return, and he doesn't hold back. It's been nearly three years since Tom last sat in the studio, and in that time his life has changed beyond recognition. Tom opens up about the moment, two years ago to the day we recorded this, when he hit rock bottom. He talks honestly about the help he got,...

This week on the Trade Legends Podcast, Toni from ALO Electrical has spent over 15 years building a fire and security business from the ground up, and in this episode, he holds nothing back. Toni left school without grades, enrolled on a BTEC business course, bought a motorbike the same day and never went back. He ended up becoming a chef before retraining as an electrician in his 20s, inspired by...

On this week's episode, Al sits down with Jermaine from Stately Home Developments, a luxury renovation and construction brand built from the ground up over the last five years. Jermaine's path into the trades is one of the most unexpected we've come across. Starting out on weekends with his granddad doing kitchen and bathroom fits in East London, he quickly realised construction was where he belon...

On this Episode of Trade Legends, we talk about how Britain needs 25,000 new electricians a year. We're producing maybe 5,000. Mark Allison has spent 20 years in the electrical industry and is now on a mission to fix the training crisis from the inside, hands-on, accredited, no shortcuts. We get into the £12k course scams robbing people blind, why employers have stopped taking apprentices, what th...

Luke Freeman joins the Trade Legends podcast to talk about life as a self-employed electrician for two years. We cover the apprenticeship journey, going self-employed with no domestic experience, cash-flow realities, toxic trades on social media, pricing wars, and why building your reputation matters more than your follower count.

This week on Trade Legends, Sophie McGee is a third-year electrical apprentice, and she's had the full experience, good employers, bad ones, and everything in between. We talk about leaving nursing mid-COVID, getting into the trades with zero background, the apprenticeship system that's quietly falling apart, and why more women in trades is good for everyone. Honest, straight-talking, and worth yo...

Two Trade Legends return. Dom and Reiss are back on the podcast. Both businesses have grown, the jobs are bigger, the money's bigger, and so are the headaches. In this episode, we get into how having kids changes everything when you're running a business, why most tradesmen are leaving serious money on the table with their accountant, the real reason growing your team too fast will bury you in adm...

Chirag is back on Trade Legends, and this time he's revealing all, including how he went from recruitment and estate agency to qualifying as a gas engineer in just two weeks. We get into whether that's actually enough to be safe on the job, the real cowboys in the industry, growing a YouTube channel to 16K subscribers, why long-form content beats shorts every time, the customer comments that make...

Bespoke furniture maker Josh from Emerald & Grace returns to the Trade Legends podcast 3 years on, and a lot has changed. Josh opens up about growing his workshop, investing in machinery, taking on the biggest project of his career and the realities of running a one-man trade business. We also get into social media, brand deals, comparing yourself to others and why the long game is the only ga...

Anthony from Rothenberger joins us to talk about how a 75-year-old titan of the industry is staying ahead of the curve. From Lee’s start as an engineer in '97 to Rothenberger’s massive €2 Billion global presence, we dive deep into the tech that’s making tradespeople faster, more efficient, and more profitable.

Sam from Oval Renewables launched a solar business during Covid with just £3k and no guarantees, and lived to tell the tale. Mark from Power Sonic Ltd and Adam from Nerrad Tools hold nothing back on big energy companies undercutting independent electricians, the apprenticeship system failing the trades, and what building a business from nothing actually looks like.

Rich Cockerline cold-approached sparks on building sites for 18 months just to get his first break, and that relentless mindset never left him. From working inside the National Cyber Security Centre with zero electronics allowed, to why 13 electrical deaths in a single year is an industry scandal nobody's talking about, this episode goes places most podcasts won't. Fake business coaches, the 2-mil...