UK Locksmiths

There used to be a standard estimate of what size population it took in the US to provide reasonable income for a locksmith, which was a useful first-cut estimate of whether there was room for another shop in a given market... Unfortunately I can't remember what it was. (30K?)

Of course that's based on a certain set of assumptions about number of locks per person and what kinds of service are being performed. Cultural differences and technological change may alter that figure.

that was Bill Reeds number...

take the population of the area you are wanting to cover/by

--Shiva-- nuk pu nuk

Hi

Maybe I worded my question wrongly.. I wasnt refering to opening a locksmith shop, I was talking about an individual that goes out and picks locks to let people into there houses when locked out, when their key breaks in the door, lock breaks (fitting new ones) etc..

Is there still plenty of work in this in the UK ?

Thanks

This is a pretty small fraction of a full-service locksmith. I wonder whether a person can make it into a paying business.

If the UK is anything like Australia, the main threat to your business is from the dreaded 'handy man' service. These blokes work so cheap (and nasty) that they bite into a lot of your 'basic' business bottom line. Instead of repairing or re-keying a good quality lock, they will chuck it in the bin, and fit a crappy cheapo Chinese $5.00 lockset and charge $10 and hour to run all over town to do it. Some businesses, and real estate agent type customers can't see past the saving of a few dollars, and employ these jokers to do all their lock work, that is until the sh*t hits the fan on something they can't handle or something they have completely stuffed up and need a real Locksmith to come to the rescue.