Keith Osborne dives into swimming pools for the second of our two-part special investigation into the wet leisure industry’s skills crisis…

With its need for trained people specialising in a variety of technical fields, the wet leisure industry is currently experiencing a significant skills shortage. A lack of foresight, together with time and budget limitations, have led some companies and organisations to an unenviable position.
Ongoing surveys estimate around 250,000 additional skilled workers are required across the UK economy over the next few years. Recently published government figures show that in the academic year 2023-24 there were 279,950 apprenticeship starts, whereas a decade ago the annual figure was regularly around the half-million mark.
An independent report, the UK Trade Skills Index 2023, finds around one-third of the nation’s current trade skills workforce is aged 50+ and planning to retire within the next ten years. Recruitment and retention in the pools sector both need to be addressed urgently.
Crucial elements to job satisfaction include the effective learning new skills and the prospects of career progression through regularly expanding that knowledge. While there’s no obligation for firms to provide these, there are resources to do so.
Dan Phillips is managing director of Lighthouse Pools, which in 2022 launched its pioneering hands-on training facility with two fully operational HeatForm panel pools with Velocity swim jets. Tailoring courses to a customer’s particular needs has led to great success, he explains, with all the training staff being experienced engineers.
“We do use a lot of our supplier resources, too, so quite a few of our suppliers participate for us. So, it’s almost like guest appearances or guest training, depending on whether it’s a bespoke session or general session. If it’s something that people want, then we’ll bring in the manufacturer and they’ll come into our facility and deliver in-depth presentations on their products. If it’s more general, then we do it ourselves.”
“In about eight weeks’ worth of training, we saw about 250 people. Some customers sent full teams, other customers just individuals. No one’s got time for it in the summer, so it’s the autumn and winter that we get the best attendance.” Bespoke courses are also an important part of services at Golden Coast.
Technical training manager Kristy Carlisle states: “At Golden Coast we’re all about people, and that extends beyond the training and opportunities that we provide for our own staff. We also want to make sure that all of our customers are able to deliver the very best service possible.”

Of its facilities in Newbury, Berkshire, she adds: “The GC Academy was inspired by our sister institution, the PPG Academy: an industry-leading facility located in Waregem, Belgium. The idea is to add value for our customers by providing them with hands-on training opportunities. So we’re not just selling them the best products – we’re teaching them how to master them as well.”
Sessions being hosted there between September 2024 and early 2025 cover topics including chemical dosing, EVA Optic, various methods of heating pools and spas, water treatment training, and retrofitted plant room upgrades. Ocea UK’s portfolio includes the supply and manufacture of made-to-measure slatted covers at their Oxfordshire facility.
Director Alan Thorne, says: “We offer in-house, one-to-one training with our partners, and have an open-door policy where will take them through the range and let them see for themselves the working products in our showroom, as well as answering any questions or concerns they may have. “It can be hard to bridge the gap between old school ways and the new technology emerging on the market.
The trade gets used to certain way of working and we are trying to give them the knowledge and confidence to trust the products we are bringing to the table.” Whilst there are some terrific training services available, it’s by no means easy for everybody to build the right team to benefit from them.

Paul Walton-Collett, managing director at Buckingham Pools, says: “Our challenge is compounded by the specialised nature of our work. While general trade skills form the foundation of our workforce, the complexity of swimming pool engineering requires a higher level of expertise.
“Traditionally, we have relied on a combination of hiring experienced tradespeople and developing talent in-house. However, as the pool of experienced tradespeople shrinks and fewer young people enter the trades, this approach has become increasingly difficult to sustain.
We find ourselves in a situation where the number of new hires with the basic skills needed to build upon is dwindling, making it harder to fill the gap with internal training alone.” Paul McMichael of Surrey-based Bell Leisure is very happy with his staff of 25, comprising 12 in the servicing team, six in technical and seven in admin.
Among these are ‘leaders’ with several years’ experience who do fewer jobs but spend time on training. When needed, he himself will go out on site to take an inexperienced team member through a task so that they understand everything about it. He sees servicing as the sector most in need of more specialist training and roles which are dedicated to it.

He explains: “I think a lot of pool companies have a service engineer who will go out and do simple servicing but will also install some pipework, or go and fit a liner, or who would also go and install a new pump or filter. “So, they would have maybe two or three services a day and then have another couple of other tasks. In my opinion, that’s a hard job to fulfil.”
Paul Walton-Collett sees problems stemming from the education system: “Vocational training has been deprioritised in favour of more academic subjects. As a result, many school leavers are ill-prepared for careers in the trades, lacking both the practical skills and the work ethic required to succeed in this demanding field.”
Luke Griffiths is General Manager at The Institute of Swimming Pool Engineers (ISPE), which was formed in 1978 and now boasts some 800 members, with ambitions to grow to 1,000. It runs a variety of seminars, workshops and home study courses and by its latest figures, over 150 Student Members are currently registered on the study course. Around 70 new students are now enrolled annually.
Luke has found membership and course attendance steady in recent years and is optimistic about the future. He says: “We think there’s scope to look at other areas of training to cover the wider industry. It’s about what are the courses we can develop to ensure there’s continual professional development and training opportunities for the staff.
While there’s a range of age groups taking part, he’d like to make the training more appealing to a broader audience. “There are females doing the course, but it’s quite low number,” he explains. “It’s something that I’m keen to look at – how we make the courses more accessible to a wide variety of demographics.”
Mike Shuff of P.A.L.M Academy and a member of the PWTAG Council, sees multiple factors which have led to the industry’s skills shortage. “Not least of which is the residual effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown and furlough scheme,” he begins. “During that period, our industry ‘lost’ many people.
Some went back to their mother-country; some used the furlough scheme to support their wish to change careers, retire, etc. Overall, It meant that the industry re-opened with a huge shortage of staff. “Not only had we lost a lot of people, but they also took with them an enormous amount of experience, skills, knowledge, etc.
These losses meant that although we could recruit people, we could not recruit knowledge and skills. It will take time to recover from that, and although the industry is recovering its ‘numbers of staff’, the skills gap will take a long time to recover.” He believes that low pay has always been an issue in this industry and that this will not change, remaining a challenge to attracting enough talent to some roles.

“The wage structure is still, though, quite attractive to young people with few financial commitments, but to a person that has family, mortgage, rent, utility bills, etc., the wage structure is not attractive.” An urgent and cohesive plan would benefit all but in the meantime it will be up to individual companies and organisations to quickly review what they can do and how even a small change might bring about a significant improvement in their own situation, and to help benefit the wider industry.
Paul Walton-Collett at Buckingham Swimming Pools is working on several initiatives to attract, train, and retain skilled professionals. He says: “We believe that with the right training and support, young people can develop the skills and knowledge needed to excel in swimming pool engineering.”
Kristy Carlisle believes that close collaboration between Golden Coast and its customers is creating the kind of bespoke courses that show the way to achieve the best results, saying: “We’re all about people, and that extends beyond the training and opportunities that we provide for our own staff.

We also want to make sure that all of our customers are able to deliver the very best service possible, and the GC Academy has been designed to equip them with the skills that they need.” Paul McMichael sees the benefits of long-term, high-quality training has created a team whose job satisfaction and knowledge plays a significant part in successful sales, especially as there is no one at Bell Leisure dedicated 100% to sales.
An installer can promote the benefits of the company’s servicing specialist which in turn can later lead to taking on a renovation project. “For us it’s the ‘sum of all parts’ philosophy and you get everything absolutely spot-on,” he comments. For Mike Shuff, the most critical part of skills shortage in the commercial sector is not in engineering.
“The greatest need within the industry is to develop the training for the long-term management of leisure facilities,” he states. “There is good vocational training opportunities for technical and teaching of sports, but there is a lack of long-term training, that would give a better career structure and promotional opportunities.”