Biggest building merchants in the UK
Biggest building merchants in the UK
Introduction
So, imagine if you can gather around you the best carpenters, electricians, plumbers, bricklayers, roofers and so forth.
And you bring them to an amazing site and you say we are going to build 100 houses here!
Now, apart from hundreds of boxes of tea, what are you missing ?
That’s right! You need building materials. And every building material from concrete drainage pipes in the ground to paint for the skirtings need to be bought from a supplier.
Because builders do not make anything. They buy building materials and small tools and rent machinery as required. And they get to work.
Therefore, they need suppliers who can supply all of the building materials, tools and machinery required when the site needs it.
All of this ‘stuff’ comes from a large network of building merchants and other businesses.
So, who are the biggest Biggest building merchants in the UK ?
Who are the Biggest building merchants in the UK ?
If you asked any builder in the UK to name some building merchants they would name at least a couple of these businesses:
- Travis Perkins
- Wolseley -heating and plumbing distribution
- Jewsons
- Selco
- Lawsons
- Wickes
- B and Q
- Screwfix
- John A Stephens
- Bradfords
- Lords
But these are just a few big names that are well known to builders and to the public at large. But you see, in the UK there are a wide range of businesses operating as building merchants. Yes, there are massive national companies like Travis Perkins but then there are also small one off independent businesses dotted around the country.
Who are the Biggest building merchant groups in the UK ?
Its interesting to see that a lot of these building merchants are owned by the same small number of groups. Also, some companies own building merchants and some of the big suppliers of goods to the building merchants so it gets a little confusing.
Lets start off by looking at the biggest companies and the businesses that they control.
Its a little mind spinning when you start to realise which companies are owned by the same giant corporation.
Also, we are not going to be constantly updating this article and these large corporations buy and sell these smaller companies to one another so these might change.
The Travis Perkins Group
The Travis Perkins group owns the following businesses:
The Kingfisher Group
The Kingfisher group owns the following businesses:
The Wolseley group
The Wolseley group owns the following businesses:
- Wolseley
- Burdens
- Fusion Utilities
- William Wilson
- Managed services
The Saint-gobain group:
This business is a huge world wide enterprise and a selected number of businesses it owns includes:
The Grafton Group
The Grafton group owns the following selected businesses:
The Highbourne Group
The Highbourne Group owns the following selected businesses:
- City Plumbing supplies
- PTS plumbing trade supplies
- The bathroom showroom
- The underfloor heating store
- DHS
- National shower spares
- Solfex energy systems
- Plumb nation
MKM group
This group seems to have just the one business, (although very large business)
Other groups that we need to talk about
We have looked at some of the monster businesses in the UK
But there are so many small independent companies that provide building materials too.
These include:
- UK Plumbing Supplies
- Independent Builders Merchant Group
- Huws Gray Group
- Lords Group Trading
- National Timber Group
- Bradfords Building Supplies
- Haldane Group
- Lawsons
- EH Smith
- Howarth Timber & Building Supplies
- JT Atkinson
- Williams & Co
- James Hargreaves
- Sydenhams
- Leicester building supplies
- Buildyard building merchants
- Build base
- Marshalls
- Matsons
- Browns
- Constructionlines.net