The hidden danger of the cost-of-living crisis: 18 million Brits cutting corners on safety
Hard-working families are being forced to gamble with the safety of their own homes: none of us should have to make that choice
Most of us want the same simple thing. A warm home. A boiler that works. The peace of mind that the person fixing it knows what they are doing and will not put our loved ones at risk.
That should never be a luxury. Yet new research shows more and more of us are being backed into a corner where safety becomes something we can no longer afford.
A nation pushed into taking risks
A study of 2,000 adults found that more than 18.2 million Brits, over half the nation, have turned to unregulated goods and illegal or unqualified tradespeople to save money. The reason is no mystery. Rising fuel prices and shrinking household budgets are named as the biggest drivers. More than half of us have changed how we spend over the past year, with many now putting low prices ahead of safety.
This is not recklessness. It is what happens when ordinary people are squeezed too hard for too long. When the bills keep climbing and the money keeps shrinking, something has to give. Too often, it is our own safety.
When saving money backfires
The gamble rarely pays off. More than half of those who chose the cheaper option said it backfired, leaving them to replace the product or pay again to put the work right.
The numbers around gas work are alarming. Almost one in five admitted cutting costs on boiler servicing or appliance maintenance, work that should only ever be done by a legally registered Gas Safe engineer. Sixteen per cent have delayed routine gas safety checks. Twelve per cent said they would consider using an unregistered gas worker to save money.
Shaunagh Brown, a former England rugby player and former Gas Safe registered engineer, knows the dangers first hand: “I understand why people are looking to save money right now, but when it comes to gas work and essential safety checks, cutting corners simply isn’t worth the risk,” she said.
The real cost of being skint
Let us be honest about what is happening here. Families are not gambling with gas leaks and carbon monoxide because they are careless. They are doing it because money is tight, and because the cost of living has turned every household decision into a fight.
Ronan Howard of Gas Safe Register put it plainly. It shows, he said, “just how normalised risk-taking has become when household budgets are under pressure”.
That is the real scandal. Not the choices of struggling families, but the pressure that forces those choices in the first place. While ordinary people ration their own safety, the firms profiting from sky-high bills carry on regardless.
How we look after each other
Here is the good news. Millions of us are already looking out for one another, sharing advice, checking credentials and refusing to be taken for a ride.
And let us keep asking the bigger question. Why are careful, decent people being priced out of their own safety? A family should not have to choose between a warm home and a safe one. Those who keep bills high while ordinary households go without are betting on our silence.
Together we can prove them wrong, look out for one another, and demand fairer bills and a country where keeping your family safe is never something you have to gamble on.