Is renovating houses a job?

Yes, renovating houses is a job, and for plenty of us it is a full career. I run All Well Property Services, a building firm working across South East and South West London, and renovation is most of what we do: whole-house refurbs of Victorian terraces in Crystal Palace and Lewisham, kitchen extensions, loft conversions, bathroom refits. The electricians, plumbers, joiners and plasterers on our jobs all make their living from the same work.

There are a few routes in. You can work employed for a building firm, a housing association or a local authority running planned upgrade works. You can train in one trade and stay on the tools. My route was running a firm, pricing and managing whole projects. Or you buy, renovate and sell property as a developer, which puts the risk and the reward on you alone.

What the TV programmes leave out is that the money is made in the boring bits. Accurate pricing. Sequencing trades so nobody stands idle. Knowing building regulations well enough to avoid rework, and keeping the budget honest week by week. Get those right and it is a good living. Get them wrong and one bad project can swallow a year's profit. Qualifications are a separate question, and the honest answer there is that it depends on the trade.