New Zealand is heading for a critical shortage of plumbers, with fewer than 20% of businesses taking on new apprentices, while experienced tradespeople head to Australia.

Infometrics forecasts about 1450 plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying jobs will need to be filled in the next year as the workforce ages out or moves overseas and work picks up.

But the industry knows there are not enough people in the pipeline to fill those gaps, especially after a long recession.

According to Master Plumbers, one of the causes was a lack of apprenticeship options.

Chief executive Greg Wallace said only 17% of the industry took on apprentices.

He said across the whole construction industry, that number was lower, at 10-15%.

“And fundamentally that is the problem.”

He said those few opportunities dried up when the economy was tougher, and belts tightened.

This year the number of new apprentices dropped by 27% compared to 2025 when the number had already halved.

“The biggest issue is the first year to 18 months for the apprenticeship because that’s when it’s hard to make money out of them.

“There’s a lot of education having to happen.”

Colleen Upton from Hutt Plumbing and Gas said she knew what it was like.

“It takes five years to bake them,” said Upton.

She had trained more than 60 apprentices over 34 years.

“Anything you’re doing now, you’re not seeing the real benefit of for at least three to four years.”

Upton had been forced to pause on taking new apprentices for the past 18 months because the market had been too tough.

But it was not from a lack of interest.

“I would get, without word of a lie, at least three CVs a week, at least, some weeks more.

“At those times when school finishes for the year or there’s a block course finished, you could get six or seven.”

Like Wallace, she agreed it was not just one thing causing the shortage.

She said Australia was luring a lot of people away after they completed their apprenticeships.

“I had an apprentice who’d just finished his time here.

“He was on early $30 an hour and he walked into $55 an hour. We just can’t compete with that.”

Ryan Wilson experienced exactly that. He jumped the ditch in 2024 after qualifying at just 23 years old.

“Career wise, there’s just so much more opportunity and to be totally frank, a lot more money.

“Bigger economies, more work.”

He was not the only one feeling the lure.

“I believe from my final block course, you’d probably be looking at about half of that final block course moved to Australia or further afield.”

Rhiannon Jarvis, the owner-operator at Jarvis Plumbing and Gasworks in Lower Hutt, was seeing those holes left behind too.

“Just two weeks ago, one guy had been with us five years, pretty much the week after he signed his gasfitting final thing, he moved to Brisbane.”

But she understood why.

“The age that people enter an apprenticeship, they’re young, it takes them five years, which is a pretty long time.

“And there’s been so many chops and changes in the primary training institutes over those five years that it has felt like a real drag for them to become qualified.

“So, I can kind of understand that as soon as they get that ticket, they’re like, ‘oh my gosh, I’m out of here’.”

She said it was made finding replacements a real struggle.

“It’s a bit dire.

“I’ve been advertising for one [skilled plumber] for a long time… Pretty constantly for a year and a half.”

But they were already hard to find and that limited her business’ capacity.

Jarvis said the present skills shortage meant there had already been a problem with the pipeline of new people for some time.

And it is about to get worse.

According to the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board, the average age of certifying plumbers, gasfitters and drainlayers was 49.

Jarvis said about 1000 people on the tools were aged over 65 and looking to retire soon, which would create more knowledge, skill and productivity gaps.

“Every single construction project in New Zealand needs plumbing, gasfitting, and drain laying.

“And we’re talking about protecting drinking water, sanitation, public health, gas.

“Without enough skilled plumbers, it’s going to be pretty hard to put that infrastructure and housing in place that we need.”

Wilson said it would be a huge issue within 10 years.

“You’re going to notice a huge amount of our trained workforce or newly trained workforce, younger generation coming through, moving to Aussie in search of their opportunities, better lifestyle,

“To be honest, to me, it’s a bit of a no-brainer.”

Jarvis, Upton and Wallace all said there was also a problem with the training and courses given to apprentices, further slowing the process.

All three spoke about how apprentices faced struggles getting into necessary courses, a lack of tutors and poor equipment.

But Wallace said there was no quick fix.

“You know how they say we aren’t good at infrastructure planning. We’re also not good at workforce planning to meet those peaks and demands.”

He said gasfitting was in the worst state because people had stopped training in it over politicisation and concerns natural gas would run out.

Upton also believed the problem could be solved by looking to more of the population.

Out of 14,000 people in the three trades, only 120 were women. Four of them worked for her.

“There’s a whole lot of women there that are interested in coming into our industry but don’t even get the opportunity of an interview because some people don’t think it’s a job for women”

But with shortages already present, and green shoots on the horizon, the industry knows it is about to be in trouble.