Reality shows boost Britain's drive to thrive in home improvement

Are Property TV Shows leading to a surge in home improvement skills? Yahoo! Answers discovers nearly 50% of those polled Desire to Better Themselves at DIY and gardening.

Britain is in the grip of a self-improvement boom, sparked potentially by the rise of home improvement and property shows such as Property Ladder and Grand designs. Watching the likes of Sarah Beeney help new starter property developers transform shells into profitable homes could be inspiring a wave of knowledge seekers to try and develop new skills of their own.

A survey, commissioned by Yahoo! Answers (yahoo.co.uk/answers) to find out the people’s burning ambitions discovered 92% of those polled would like to learn and develop new expertise such as DIY, with 48% of those polled inspired to become in the home improvement and gardening department.

Of all the professions, the Yahoo! Answers survey showed that were the doctors and nurses were the keenest to swap surgical implements for the power tools along with 28% of builders wishing they could be better at DIY. Estate agents were also among the keener professions to better themselves at DIY with nearly one in five recognising the financial benefits of giving their properties a facelift.

Salim Mitha, Director of Search & Social Search, Yahoo! Europe, says, “Yahoo! Answers is a thriving, global knowledge-sharing community of over 17 million users in Europe. The community is available to share their knowledge, tips and insight on a whole range of categories from food and drink to sport. With Yahoo! Answers someone out there could have the answer to your questions which in turn could help us all to improve our skills, hobbies and overall knowledge.”

The Yahoo! Answers survey shows that most people want to be better at something and with 6 in 10 consumers in the UK now accessing the Internet on a daily basis, Yahoo! enables users to connect to their interests and passions through a variety of information, tools, and services. Yahoo! Answers is the perfect medium to share knowledge and insights to perhaps help develop skills like cooking.

Yahoo! Answers – yahoo.co.uk/answers