Mood of pest professionals is upbeat, says survey

Most people in the public health pest control sector are optimistic about the future, according to the findings from the first-ever National UK Pest Management Industry Survey, which were revealed at PestEx.

The survey by BASF Pest Control Solutions and Pest magazine was conducted in February and early March this year. Questionnaires were sent by email toPestreaders working at the sharp end of the industry in both local authorities and private sector pest control businesses.

The survey compared three groups: self employed pest controllers, those working for private pest control companies and those employed in local authorities. With a 30% response rate the results are pretty representative – with one exception the majority of local authorities participating in the survey are likely to still have in-house pest control units.

Future prospects
In the coming year (as detailed in the tables alongside), three quarters of private pest control companies and two thirds of self-employed pest controllers saw prospects as good or very good, with that number increasing to 77% for both these groups over a five year period. In contrast, among those working in local authorities around half saw prospects as good or very good in the coming year with a further third or so saying prospects were neither good nor poor. Over the longer five year period however this group were much more uncertain about the future. 22% answered don’t know and only 28% thought prospects were good or very good.

Other headline findings were that most teams remain small at five or less, rodent control work continues to be the mainstay of most pest control business with the most likely areas for growth being bedbug control and rodent work.

Work is fairly equally divided between the domestic and commercial sectors with rather more self-employed and local authorities in the domestic sector. Time makes up a good 60% of most jobs.

As to the future
When it comes to issues impacting on the future of UK pest control government austerity measures and national economic pressures were expected to have serious impacts and both DIY pest control and red tape were areas of major concern.

All groups felt that anticoagulant rodenticides are crucial to both rodent control and public health and that whilst not yet a serious problem the threat of pesticide resistance requires careful management.

Full report
Watch out for a full report on the survey findings in the next issue of Pest magazine.

Local authorities