profile
Neil Hargreaves
Neil Hargreaves is Managing Director for Knauf Insulation Northern Europe (KINE), which includes the markets across the UK & Ireland, Scandinavia and English-speaking countries in Africa.
Neil originally joined KINE in 2006 as Head of Commercial Finance before leaving to become Finance Director (EMEA) for a multi-national manufacturing and contracting business. In 2011, he re-joined KINE as Finance Director and has since played a key role in a number of commercial, financial and strategic projects. He was appointed Managing Director in February 2019.
Prior to joining KINE, Neil trained as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG and gained experience in audit, business consulting and transaction services working with clients across manufacturing, construction and leisure industries.
Neil sits on the board for the Mineral Wool Insulation Manufacturers Association (MIMA).
Knauf Insulation
Knauf Insulation is the UK’s leading manufacturer of glass and rock mineral wool insulation products.
As part of the family owned Knauf Group, Knauf Insulation represents one of the most respected and progressive names in insulation. It offers an unrivalled range of insulation solutions for any application or project to meet the increasing demand for energy efficiency, fire resistance, thermal and acoustic performance in new and existing homes, non-residential buildings and industrial applications.
In the UK, the company operates at three manufacturing plants; Cwmbran, Queensferry and St. Helens.
Visit www.knaufinsulation.co.uk. Follow @KnaufUK
Launched in 2015, the award winning monthly Builders Merchant Building Index (BMBI) report is the only reliable measure of repair, maintenance & improvement (RMI) activity in the UK. Filling an important gap, it can be widely used in construction, and by economists, Government, national media, commentators and influencers outside the industry.
Knauf-Insulation Comment: Q4 2025
Twenty twenty-five was not the year construction anticipated. Prolonged uncertainty led to lower levels of housebuilding, and while November’s budget provided welcome clarity, it also brought the cancellation of the ECO scheme.
Over its lifetime, ECO delivered improved insulation in well over a million homes, yet recent quality issues driven by poor scheme design and oversight must be corrected if its just-published replacement, the Warm Homes Plan, is to deliver for households.
Signs for optimism include a reformed Energy Performance Certificate that may allow installers to differentiate their work on quality rather than just price. A concern remains though that the Plan may jump to solely deploying alternative technologies such as heat pumps. A well-insulated home is a comfortable, affordable, low-energy home. Insulation must remain central to any Warm Homes Plan.
The Future Homes Standard is the other signature demand-driving legislation. Publication is imminent at the time of writing, but we can already draw some conclusions on how it will affect merchant sales.
First, wider walls. 150mm wall cavities are becoming the new normal in masonry construction. Sixty six percent of builders already have plans to build with 150mm cavities when the Future Homes Standard comes into effect, with a further 23% considering it1. Because of the performance it offers to the building and the builder, we expect most of those cavities to be fully filled with mineral wool insulation, often premium products with a lower lambda value.
Second, deeper lofts. Two layers of loft insulation, 270mm deep has been the baseline for over a decade, but builders are increasingly going far beyond that, adding a third layer of insulation to reach up to 500mm. This trend started with Part L 2021, with large housebuilders finding more efficient lofts an easier win in their overall compliance calculations. We expect it to be an even more popular choice under the Future Homes Standard.
Habits are changing, and with that comes opportunities for merchants. To increase the volume and value of the insulation they sell, and the accompanying ancillaries, to enable the new normal.
1 Survey of Professional Builder readers, conducted Q4 2025