'I'm a builder - here are three questions to always ask us and the upgrades that rarely help your house price'

If you've ever spent your morning commute daydreaming about starting afresh with your career, this feature is for you. Each Monday, the Money blog chats to someone from a different profession to discover what it's really like. Today we speak to builder Luke Burford, co-founder of comparebuilders.co.uk.

Decent tradespeople earn... £250k+ self-employed and £50k+ employed.

If I could give every young tradesman one instruction... It would be to start a pension at 20, not 40. Your body is your business, and it has a shelf life. Knees, backs and shoulders don't care what your order book looks like. The smart ones plan the move off the tools in their forties into supervision, management or running their own firm.

The thing I hate the most about my job is... chasing money. Doing the work is the easy part - getting paid for it is the fight. Construction has a payment culture problem all the way down the chain, and it kills more good small firms than bad workmanship ever does.

The three things I'd ask any builder before hiring them are...

1. Can I speak to your last three clients? (Not your best three);
2. Show me your insurance certificates and tell me exactly what happens if something goes wrong;
3. Who is physically running my job day-to-day? The person who charms you at the quote stage is often not the person on your site.

The number one mistake clients make is... big deposits. A legitimate builder with a healthy business doesn't need 40% up front. Material deposits for long-lead items, fine, but the bulk of your money should follow the work, not lead it. Agree staged payments tied to milestones, in writing, before anyone lifts a tool. The second mistake is starting without a proper contract and the third is not agreeing how changes will be priced - variations are where budgets die.

Every decision you make mid-build costs more and holds up the project... Fix the specification before you start! Choose your kitchen, your tiles, your sanitaryware before the first brick moves. Don't cut money out of the structure, the roof or the waterproofing; save on finishes, because a kitchen can be upgraded in 10 years, but decisions made to cut corners or reduce the build are ones you're stuck with.

The clients that get the best value for money are... decisive ones. People who do their homework, make a choice, trust the professionals they've hired. Indecision on-site is the most expensive thing there is.

The most costly mistake a client can make is to... choose purely on price. If three similar quotes come in, but another is 30% under, that quote is missing something and you'll pay for it later, usually with interest.

The most frustrating people I have to deal with are... Planning departments. I understand why the system exists, but the delays are ridiculous. And on the odd occasion, architects tell a homeowner a rough budget that is either 100% over or 50% under!

It's a myth you should negotiate quotes... Because a properly priced job has the margin it needs to be done well. Knock 15% off and some builders will still take the job on and just cut corners.

A £100k kitchen or £80k bathroom on a road where the average house price is £600k... is money you will never see again. Swimming pools are the classic: expensive to build, expensive to run, and plenty of buyers see them as a liability.

The invisible signs of a cowboy builder are... bad finishes, tiles out of level, doors that catch, sockets not straight. If they've rushed the work that's on show, imagine what's behind the plasterboard. Fire doors are also the tell. Gaps you could shake hands through, missing strips, holes drilled through fire-rated walls for cables and never sealed. It's invisible to most homeowners and it's everywhere.

We told a generation that university was the only respectable route, and the industry is paying for it now... And so will homeowners - in prices and waiting lists. When I started at 16, there was a pipeline of young people coming through. That pipeline has collapsed.

The best change to the industry has been... The shift on safety and accountability, especially since Grenfell and the Building Safety Act. The standards are real now and people are really taking it seriously.

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If I were prime minister, I would...

1. Cut VAT on renovation and retrofit to 5%. New builds are zero-rated while improving existing homes carries full VAT and it pushes cash jobs and cowboys
2. License builders. You need a licence to cut hair in some countries, but anyone with a van and a Facebook page can rip the back off someone's house here. Minimum standards would protect the public and the good firms
3. Fix planning. Statutory decision deadlines with consequences when councils miss them.

A house tells buyers the truth in bad weather... Look up and look down before you look at the kitchen. The roofline, chimneys and gutters tell you how the house has been cared for. Cracks above doors and windows, stains on ceilings, damp smells, floors out of level, the condition of the external joinery. Then budget for what you can't see: assume the survey missed something, because it usually has. And go back after heavy rain if you can.

The problem with new builds is... Programme pressure. Volume housebuilders run to completion dates, and the bottom line and quality is what gets squeezed. So, check the things speed ruins: doors and windows that don't close cleanly, mastic and finishing, thresholds out of level, loft insulation actually covering the loft, garden drainage that isn't a swamp. Snag hard, in writing, before completion.

Become a builder - AI is not going to plaster a ceiling or rewire a house... There aren't many careers left where a 16-year-old with no degree can build something that employs people 20 years later.

People don't judge you on whether problems happen, they judge you on how you handle them... The clients who become your best advocates aren't the ones with the smoothest jobs, they're the ones who watched you deal with a problem honestly and fix it. Trust is the entire business.

I wish I'd had this penny drop five years sooner... Like most builders, I spent years believing nobody could do the job as well as me, so I tried to do everything myself. That thinking caps your business and burns you out. The moment I trusted good people and focused on running the company instead of trying to be everywhere at once, everything changed. I'd have that penny drop five years sooner.

(c) Sky News 2026: 'I'm a builder - here are three questions to always ask us and the upgrades that rar