As reported by RNZ, the NZ plumber shortage 2026 is heading toward critical levels, with Infometrics forecasting approximately 1,450 plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying jobs needing to be filled in the next year alone. Fewer than 20 percent of businesses are taking on new apprentices, new apprentice numbers dropped 27 percent this year after already halving in 2025, and experienced tradespeople continue to leave for Australia where wages are dramatically higher. The average age of certifying plumbers, gasfitters and drainlayers is now 49, with around 1,000 people on the tools aged over 65 and approaching retirement.
Key Insights
- 1,450 plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying jobs need to be filled in the next year due to workforce ageing, overseas migration and rising workloads
- Fewer than 20% of businesses are taking on new apprentices; new apprentice numbers dropped 27% this year after already halving in 2025
- A plumbing apprenticeship takes five years to complete; the first 12 to 18 months is the hardest to monetise for employers
- Average age of certifying plumbers, gasfitters and drainlayers is 49; around 1,000 people aged over 65 are approaching retirement
- Australia is the primary draw: a freshly qualified NZ plumber earning around $30/hour can walk into $55/hour across the Tasman; roughly half of one recent final block course moved to Australia or further afield
- Rhiannon Jarvis, Lower Hutt: lost a five-year employee to Brisbane the week he qualified; has been advertising for one skilled plumber for a year and a half
- Only 120 women work across the three trades out of 14,000 people total, despite strong candidate interest
- Gasfitting is in the worst state of the three trades; training institute shortages including lack of tutors and poor equipment compound the pipeline problem
Our Thoughts
The NZ plumber shortage 2026 is a slow-moving crisis that the industry has seen coming for years and has been largely unable to prevent. The combination of factors at play is genuinely difficult to untangle: a recession that caused businesses to stop taking on apprentices at exactly the moment they should have been building the next generation of workers, a five-year training pipeline that means decisions made today do not produce qualified tradespeople until 2031, and an Australian labour market that is hoovering up newly qualified Kiwis before they have spent a single day as an experienced employee in New Zealand.
The apprenticeship numbers are the most alarming signal in the entire article. New apprentice intakes dropped 27 percent this year, following a year in which numbers had already halved. Compound those two movements, and you are looking at a pipeline that is running at a fraction of the volume needed to replace the workforce that is about to retire. With around 1,000 people on the tools aged over 65 and an average certifying age of 49 across the three trades, the retirements are not a distant threat. They are arriving within the current decade, and the people who should be replacing those workers are either not being trained or leaving the country as soon as they qualify.
The Australia problem is structural, not cyclical. Ryan Wilson’s account is worth sitting with: early $30 an hour in New Zealand, $55 an hour on arrival in Australia, at age 23 with a fresh qualification and his whole career ahead of him. From his perspective, and from the perspective of roughly half of his final block course who made the same decision, it is, as he put it, a no-brainer. New Zealand cannot easily compete with Australian wages in the trades because Australian wages are driven by a larger economy with a different cost base. What New Zealand can do, and is not doing well enough, is make the path to qualification faster, better supported, and more financially viable for both apprentices and the employers who take them on.
The NZ plumber shortage 2026 has a diversity dimension that is not getting enough attention. Out of 14,000 people across plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying, only 120 are women. Colleen Upton’s observation that women are interested but often do not even get to the interview stage is a damning indictment of an industry that is simultaneously complaining it cannot find enough workers. Four of those 120 women work for Upton. The untapped pipeline is significant, and the barrier is not the supply of interested candidates. Upton receives at least three CVs a week. The barrier is cultural, and it is costing the industry workers it desperately needs.
Greg Wallace’s comment about New Zealand’s failure at workforce planning is the line that should stay with every business owner reading this story. The plumbing shortage is a visible, concrete example of a pattern that repeats across multiple industries: decisions about training and workforce development are made reactively, in response to immediate cost pressures, rather than proactively, in anticipation of medium-term demand. The five-year apprenticeship pipeline means that the right time to be increasing intake was during the recession, when demand was soft enough to absorb the early-stage productivity cost of new apprentices. Instead, businesses did the rational short-term thing and paused intake. The industry is now paying the medium-term cost of that collectively rational but strategically damaging decision.
Our Questions for You
- Master Plumbers CEO Greg Wallace says the biggest issue with apprenticeships is the first 12 to 18 months, when it is hard to make money from them. Should government subsidies cover this period more generously to encourage more businesses to take on apprentices, or does that create dependency rather than genuine industry investment in training?
- Around half of a recent plumbing final block course moved to Australia immediately after qualifying. If New Zealand cannot compete on wages, what other levers – career progression, quality of life, regional opportunity – could realistically persuade more qualified tradespeople to stay?
- Only 120 women work across 14,000 people in plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying, despite clear evidence that women are applying for roles and not getting interviews. What would it take to genuinely shift the culture of the trades, and what is the business case for doing so urgently given the current shortage?
