Retrofit Has Built It's Own Barriers - This Network Smashes Them

Attending hundreds of conferences, seminars and meet-ups across the UK, one thing stands out.

Whether I'm at a local pub with 'renewable-curious' builders, sitting through a CIoH seminar series or walking the halls of a three-day national show, retrofit is remarkably united in its purpose.

But at local, regional and national level, it keeps encountering the same problem.

We aren't very good at finding each other.

Contractors are continuously hunting for new contracts. Suppliers can be siloed away from the jobs they need to support. Installers and tradespeople have a fluid and often challenging time identifying where the next opportunity is coming from.

Training providers have courses businesses don't know exist. Businesses discover opportunities they aren't yet qualified to deliver. And somewhere else, someone is desperately looking for precisely the skills those businesses have.

Everyone talks about collaboration. Actually making it happen is harder.

Then along comes Jessica Shuker.

“The one word that kept coming up was collaboration.” Jessica Shuker

A Meeting Place for Retrofit

Jessica wasn't an industry grandee arriving with a grand plan to disrupt retrofit. In fact, her route into the sector was anything but conventional.

Her background was in fashion marketing and primary school teaching before she found herself working for South & City College Birmingham, engaging construction businesses through an Innovate UK-funded programme.

Jessica knew:

✅ marketing.

✅ education.

✅ how to talk to people.

Construction and retrofit she learned by getting out there and meeting the people doing it.

And she started noticing something. At one networking event, contractors were saying they couldn't find enough installers. Installers were complaining that contractors didn't answer their emails. Training providers were trying to remind both groups that they existed and could help businesses acquire the skills they needed.

They were all standing in the same room.

“I kind of just looked at everybody and was like: you're in a room. Just talk to each other.” Jessica Shuker

Then they left.

That was the light bulb moment.

Jessica went back to her notebook and doodled a little house logo remarkably similar to the one the Retrofit Exchange uses today.

“There’s got to be a way of resolving this.” Jessica Shuker

That doodle became an idea.

The idea became the Retrofit Exchange, or REX, a dedicated digital network designed to connect contractors, installers, training providers and retrofit professionals without requiring them to fight their way through the noise of a general-purpose social network.

LinkedIn Without the Noise?

LinkedIn is the platform I probably use more than any other professionally.

But wading through self-help gurus, engagement bait, adverts and algorithmically selected content to find the useful stuff has become increasingly difficult.

A conference you actually need to attend can disappear beneath someone's 14-paragraph story about what their breakfast taught them about leadership.

So there is something rather appealing about the simplicity of REX.

It is, in essence, a LinkedIn built specifically for retrofit but with the networking pointed towards actually getting something done.

Jobs, tenders, frameworks, training, funding opportunities, events and industry news sit alongside an internal messaging system. Users can express interest in opportunities and then deal directly with the organisation offering them. Jessica isn't trying to become a middleman in the contract itself.

“I don't get involved in the contract exchange. It's the connection that I get involved with.” Jessica Shuker

That's an important distinction.

REX isn't trying to own the relationship.

It's trying to make the introduction.

And Jessica has deliberately built the platform around the realities of the industry rather than Silicon Valley's idea of how everyone ought to use technology. The interface is intended to be simple, with opportunities saved and tracked through a straightforward Kanban-style system.

“I wanted to try and make this as easy to use as possible.” Jessica Shuker

Built by Someone Who Didn't Build Apps

There is another part of Jessica's story that I particularly like.

She didn't have an app-development background.

She initially imagined REX as a consultancy. Someone suggested it could become an app.

So she learned.

Using AI and what she describes as “vibe coding”, Jessica began building the platform herself.

“I have zero apps experience or background experience in that, but I go full throttle in anything that I do.” Jessica Shuker

This reveals a lot more about the Retrofit Exchange than any technical specification could.

It could have been a SaaS vertical on a spreadsheet trying to identify a lucrative earning margin from data. Yawn. But it isn't.

It came from somebody repeatedly talking to contractors, installers and training providers and thinking: why is this so difficult?

The Human Cost of Not Connecting

Jessica has done a great job of identifying a serious issue.

Behind every conversation about “industry capacity” and “supply chains” are small businesses trying to keep people employed.

Jessica talks to them.

Some tell her they've had a rubbish week. Others are desperate for work or desperately trying to acquire the skills that will allow them to bid for different work.

Some are wondering whether they can continue employing people.

“I don't know if I can pay my guys so they can put food on the table.” Jessica Shuker

If we talk about retrofit purely in terms of targets - this human element is lost.

These aren't dots on an organisational chart.

They're businesses. Families. Careers. Apprentices. Installers. People trying to work out where the next job comes from.

Jessica's ambition for REX is therefore refreshingly uncomplicated.

“I want to see businesses grow.” Jessica Shuker

The theory is almost beautifully circular.

More businesses join. More opportunities appear. More people make useful connections. The network becomes more valuable, which attracts more businesses and creates more connections.

At the time we spoke, REX had 128 members, with businesses already joining from across the UK. Membership begins with a 30-day free period before moving to £20 per month.

But numbers aren't really the interesting part yet.

The interesting part is the intent.

Digital Networking That Leads Back to People

Because despite building a digital platform, Jessica doesn't appear particularly interested in keeping everyone behind a screen.

She also organises networking events, champions women in construction and wants REX to facilitate the kind of conversations that first inspired it.

Her experience as a teacher still shows.

She talks about getting younger people particularly girls to understand the breadth of careers available in construction before their educational choices begin narrowing their options. And she talks about events that encourage round-table discussion rather than another afternoon of being talked at.

Everything keeps returning to the same idea.

Communication.

“People really crave that.” Jessica Shuker

And perhaps that's why the Retrofit Exchange feels timely.

Retrofit doesn't necessarily need another social-media platform.

It needs somewhere useful.

Somewhere a contractor can say I need installers and an installer can actually see it.

Somewhere a business can discover the qualification standing between it and its next contract and find somebody offering the training.

Somewhere an opportunity doesn't disappear because an algorithm decided we'd rather watch somebody explain their morning routine.

Jessica Shuker saw people who needed each other standing in the same room and failing to connect.

So she built another room.

This time, she's hoping we'll actually talk to each other.