Plumber Job Description

Plumbing, gas or heating appliance work, and unvented hot water systems are often regulated separately, and the split differs by country and sometimes by state. Decide exactly which categories of work your role covers before advertising, then state the approval required for each and verify it with the relevant register. A plumber who is fully qualified for water and waste may not be permitted to touch a gas appliance in your jurisdiction, and assuming otherwise creates both legal and insurance exposure. Confirm the current local position rather than repeating a previous employer's wording.

The most useful interview question for a plumber is about a diagnosis that went wrong before it went right. Listen for how they narrowed it down: isolating sections, checking above the visible damage rather than at it, pressure testing, and ruling out condensation or a failed seal before opening a wall. Candidates who describe replacing parts until the symptom stopped will do the same in a customer's house at your cost. Diagnosis quality, not installation speed, is what separates plumbers in practice.

Where you can, set a short practical task: a small run with two or three joints in the materials you actually work with, then pressure test it. You learn whether the candidate prepares and cleans properly, whether the pipework is supported and set out sensibly, and whether the joints hold. It also shows how tidy they are, which matters more than it sounds when the work happens in someone's kitchen. Keep it short, pay for the time, and explain how you will assess it.

Emergency plumbing work is unpredictable by nature, and an on call rota is a materially different job from a scheduled day. State plainly whether the role includes callouts, how often the rota comes round, how it is paid, and what response time is expected. Candidates who accept that openly stay; those who discover it in week three do not. If the role has no callout element, say so, because many applicants assume it does and screen themselves out.

Plumbing firms usually hire in response to contracts landing rather than on a steady schedule, so speed from decision to first day matters. Pitch N Hire's applicant tracking system keeps every past applicant searchable with their qualification category, approvals and availability, so a new contract starts from a warm list instead of a fresh advert. Structured application questions capture registration and expiry dates so ineligible applicants are filtered before screening, and interviews can be booked in batches. Office staff and working supervisors can both see the same pipeline, which matters when the person making the decision is on site all day.