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Tiling Trade News: TTA Silica Warning, 2% Retentions

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A quiet trading week, but three pieces of hard information landed for anyone who cuts tile or stone for a living: a safety warning on engineered stone, the first real numbers on how much money the industry holds back in retentions, and merchant results showing supplier price rises are still being passed down the chain.

Here is what changed in the week to 14 August 2026, and what it means if you are pricing work or buying materials.

The Tile Association warns on dry-cutting engineered stone

On 12 August the TTA issued fresh guidance on working with engineered stone, and the figure at the centre of it is worth memorising: quartz-based engineered stone averages around 95% respirable crystalline silica, against under 3% for marble. Cut or drill it dry and you are putting silica straight into your lungs. Silicosis cannot be reversed, though the HSE is clear that it is entirely preventable.

The association lists six control failures it keeps seeing on site, all of them breaches of COSHH: dry cutting, no on-tool water suppression, poor mist control, missing or unsuitable RPE, no health surveillance, and unguarded machinery. If you are subbing into kitchen and bathroom fit-outs where a quartz worktop or a stone shower tray gets trimmed on site, this is your exposure as much as the stonemason’s. The HSE is running courses on controlling RCS exposure at Buxton on 17 November 2026 and 23 February 2027. Read the TTA guidance.

Build UK publishes retentions figures for the first time

Also on 12 August, Build UK released its first benchmark of payment retentions, built on the government reporting rules introduced in 2025. Tier one contractors withhold an average of 2% retention, and pass 74% of the retentions they receive from clients down to their own supply chains, absorbing the other 26%.

The payment picture around it has genuinely improved: average payment time is down from 45 days in 2018 to 29 days, and 96% of invoices are now settled within 60 days, up from 82%. For a small tiling firm the 2% headline is less important than where it sits in the chain, because that money is usually held twice over before it reaches you. Build UK deputy chief executive Jo Fautley pointed to the retentions ban in the Commercial Payments Bill as the fix. Worth knowing which of your contracts still carry a retention clause before that Bill moves. See the Build UK benchmark.

Trade firms grew revenue 14% year on year, research finds

Tradify published an analysis of 3,271 UK trade businesses on 13 August. Average revenue across six trades rose 14% year on year over the period June 2024 to May 2026. Carpentry and renovations grew fastest at 25%, electrical and AV at 19%. HVAC and refrigeration leads on absolute revenue at an average of £428,538, and large teams of 13 or more in electrical and AV clear £2.09m. Sole traders across all six trades average over £100,000 a year.

Tiling is not broken out separately, so treat the carpentry and renovations line as the nearest proxy for refurbishment work. The useful signal for a tiler is that renovation spend is where the growth sits, which argues for chasing bathroom and kitchen refits rather than new-build packages. Read the research summary.

Travis Perkins passes on supplier price rises in H1

Travis Perkins reported first-half results on 4 August: revenue of £2.258bn, down 1.8%, but adjusted operating profit up 6.3% to £67m and profit after tax up 15.4% to £30m, with the group in a £55m net cash position against £103m of net debt a year earlier. The company attributed its wider gross margins to “more effective pass-through of supplier price inflation”.

Translate that plainly: the merchant is holding less of the manufacturers’ price rises on its own books and more of it is reaching your invoice. If you are quoting a job more than a few weeks out, price adhesive, grout and trims from a current quote rather than last month’s, and say in writing how long your materials price holds. See the results coverage.

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