Most assets a business owns lose value over time. Vans depreciate, tools wear out, systems go out of date. There is one asset in an HVAC business that quietly does the opposite, appreciating a little each year without anyone doing anything to it, and it is the certified competence of the people who work there. The refrigerant phasedown is one of the forces pushing that value up.
This post explains why, and it picks up the second theme from our October market briefing on the F-Gas quarter. The short version: scarce work is meeting scarce people, and that combination is very good for anyone who already has a qualified team.
Scarcity on Two Sides
The first scarcity is in the work itself. Under the GB F-Gas Regulation, the supply of HFC refrigerant to the market falls to 24 per cent of the 2015 baseline from 1 January 2027. As the cap tightens, the higher-carbon gases get harder to source and more expensive, and the premium shifts to recovering, reclaiming and reusing refrigerant and to handling lower-carbon alternatives. That work is more specialised, not less, and it can only be done by someone qualified.
The second scarcity is in the people. Government modelling referenced in parliamentary evidence puts the number of trained MCS heat pump installers at roughly 9,000, against an estimate of around 50,200 needed by 2030. On the conventional side, Gas Safe's own decade review put the average age of registered engineers at just over 45, and the industry's reviews keep flagging a large cohort of the workforce approaching retirement. New entrants are simply not arriving fast enough to close the gap.
Put a shrinking supply of qualified work next to a shrinking supply of qualified people, and the value of a certified team goes only one way.
Why This Reads as Value to a Buyer
When an acquirer looks at an HVAC business, they are not really buying last year's revenue. They are buying the capability to keep earning it, and in this sector that capability lives in certified people. F-Gas, Gas Safe and MCS coverage across a stable team is the clearest signal a buyer has that the business will still function the day after completion.
That is why certification coverage and staff retention feature so heavily in due diligence. A buyer can acquire your customer list, your patch and your pricing. What they cannot assemble quickly, at any sensible cost, is a team of qualified engineers who turn up on Monday and can legally do the work a tightening rulebook restricts. The phasedown makes that team scarcer relative to the demand, which is precisely what makes it appreciate.
Turning an Appreciating Asset Into a Documented One
The value only counts if a buyer can see it, so the practical task is documentation rather than transformation. A few things make the difference. Keep a live register of certifications and their renewal dates, so coverage can be evidenced rather than described. Record training and progression, which shows the capability is being renewed from within. Put sensible retention arrangements around your key engineers, so a buyer is not betting on people they have never met. And be clear about how staff would transfer under TUPE, because a smooth people transition removes one of a buyer's biggest worries.
None of this is glamorous, and none of it needs to happen overnight. But it converts a strength you already have into one a buyer can price. In a market where the regulation itself is making certified competence scarcer, the owners who can prove their team's qualifications are holding the asset everyone else is trying to build. If an exit is on your horizon, that is a good position to be in, and a better one still if it is written down.
