According to the findings of a recent survey by Swinton Insurance, the average British person has wasted approximately £300 in the last year by employing tradespeople to perform simple tasks that they could have done themselves.

The survey of around 2,000 people also found that 48 per cent of people are not confident enough to perform minor repairs in their household and 25 per cent do not feel comfortable carrying out any DIY tasks at all.

The respondents were asked which DIY tasks they feel happy performing and just 49 per cent said that they would be able to put up a shelf. As well as this, just 35 per cent said that they would be able to fix a leaking tap and 60 per cent would be happy to unblock a drain.

The survey also spoke to tradespeople and discovered that they agree with the opinion that British people tend to be unconfident with basic DIY, with 80 per cent of the tradespeople saying that people are too quick to employ a tradesperson for a job which could be done themselves.

The tradespeople in the survey also said that they spend approximately 2.21 hours a day fixing botched DIY.

Head of Products at Swinton Insurance, Mark Hallam, said of the findings:

“The findings make it clear that much more needs to be done to educate Britons on basic DIY.

“It’s absurd that we spend hundreds of pounds on odd jobs we could do ourselves, particularly when family budgets continue to be stretched.

“Of course, the need for professionals is always going to exist, and there are some tasks only experts should handle, especially complicated electrical and plumbing jobs.”