Hannah Badman, a director of bespoke joinery specialists Badman & Badman, is also a qualified bench joiner, wood machinist and has an HNC in Construction Studies.

“I began working in the family business from a very young age. After school I tried a variety of different jobs but found I wasn’t as happy as when I was working with wood, so I decided to come back to the business. I went to the Construction Industry Training Board and did NVQ qualifications up to level 3 in both Bench Joinery and Wood Machining. I then went on to complete an ONC and HNC in Construction Studies. Our company is a member of the British Woodworking Federation and I now keep up to date by going to their training meetings."

"My role changed towards the middle of last year and I now manage the business with an annual turnover of £500k, dealing with commercial and domestic customers and top international architects and designers. I work closely with all my customers taking their plans and drawings and advising them on how their designs can be achieved. It’s a very diverse role as every day brings different work. For instance I recently worked on a table for a designer and travelled to Greece with some of the team to manage the fitting and at the moment I am working on a prototype lamp for a hotel in Geneva. All of this is very challenging, exciting and enjoyable. It creates a huge buzz within the company."

"We need to raise the standards of training and qualifications in the industry to protect our reputation. There’s a difference between the skills of joiners and carpenters: people shouldn’t confuse the two but very often do. This is something we need to change. We’ve got to make the public aware of our workmanship and the sustainability of the material we work with. "