That’s according to the country’s largest supplier of copper tubing products, Lawton Tubes, which supplies the nation’s air conditioning industry with enough copper tube to run 20 lengths of the UK every year – including AC firms such as HVAC UK and TCM Services who have confirmed waiting times of up to two months.

Robert Lawton, director at Lawton Tubes, said: “Many of the air conditioning engineers we speak to say demand is being driven by a combination of the rising popularity of residential air conditioning since the pandemic, with more people working from home, and a chronic shortage of air conditioning engineers.

“The series of heatwaves we are having is an early warning sign that unless the industry shakes up its approach to attracting the next generation of AC engineers, then the waiting list for installations and repairs will continue to increase at a time when the Earth is slowly getting warmer.”

It comes as the number of UK homes with air conditioning rose to around 19% in 2022, up from 3% in 2011, according to a recent academic report.

Although the figure for the shortage of air conditioning engineers is unknown, the UK needs to recruit an extra 20,000 skilled tradespeople a year over the next five years to meet demand, including air conditioning engineers, according to the CITB.

Robert added: “There aren’t enough individuals thinking of ways to make air conditioning a ‘cool career’ for future generations.”