Ken Hudson once spent four days sorting tiles before laying a single one. On another job, four people were trying to manoeuvre one enormous tile into a bathroom while the client filmed. Anyone still think tiling is just sticking squares on a wall?
In Season 1, Episode 3 of Off The Job: A Tradesman Podcast, Ken from Huds Tiling Services joins Keiran Yates and Pete Withers to talk about large-format tiling, starting his own business, sharing trade skills online and the jobs that test your patience before you’ve even opened the adhesive. If this is your first time finding the show, expect real UK trade stories, plenty of laughs and the occasional opinion that would make a site manager nervous.
Who is Ken Hudson of Huds Tiling Services?
Ken is a tiler and the founder of Huds Tiling Services. Tiling runs through his family: his dad taught him and his brothers the trade in Jamaica, and his brothers still work as tilers. Ken moved to the UK in his twenties and spent 14 years working for an Essex tiling company before going out on his own.
That move wasn’t a neat handover of a van, a full diary and a list of clients. Ken says he left without taking the company’s contacts and had to build his business from the ground up. He’d become frustrated by decisions that, in his view, put price ahead of the specified materials and the finished job. His name would still be attached to the work, even when he wasn’t making those decisions.
He tells Keiran and Pete about one project where a colour difference in thousands of tiles became an expensive problem. It’s the sort of lesson that sticks: your reputation doesn’t politely detach itself from the job just because somebody else ordered the materials.
Why does large-format tiling take so much planning?
Ken’s answer is that the tiles, the layout and every other trade have to work together before anything goes on the wall. He describes projects using slabs up to three metres long, bookmatched pieces that must meet in the right sequence, and bathrooms where pipes, niches and fittings leave very little room for error. A niche might look like a little shelf to the customer. To the person setting out the wall, it’s another collection of cuts, edges and decisions.
On one job, Ken recalls working around 16 pipes in a single tile. On another, he says a tile could cost roughly £600 to £800, with a mistake on a bookmatched pair potentially affecting both pieces. Those are examples from his projects, not a guide to what tiling should cost. They do explain why “can’t you just move it a bit?” isn’t always the helpful suggestion it sounds like.
At a large project in Chigwell, Essex, Ken’s team worked on and off for about two and a half years. They laid out a roughly 250-square-metre floor so its veining followed through the space, then considered the floors above it too. The team spent four paid days sorting and numbering tiles to make the pattern work. Four days of tile Tetris before the laying began, and quite a lot more riding on each move.
What happened when Ken worked at Westminster Abbey?
Ken recalls working on a demanding stone tiling job at Westminster Abbey while employed by his former company. He says he handled technical details and late meetings on site, then was invited to an opening attended by Prince Philip. Ken got to shake his hand. After all the stress of the job, that’s a fairly memorable way to clock off.
It’s one of several stories in the episode about the difference between the people who do the work and the people who take credit for it. Ken also explains why he walked away from a high-value house project when he felt the site decisions and workmanship were going in the wrong direction. Leaving cost him money, he says, but staying could have cost him more. The conversation is frank about the pressure to get on with a job even when your instincts are telling you to stop.
Why does Ken share tiling advice on Instagram?
Ken was photographing finished work before Instagram gave him an audience for it. Later, he started making videos that showed other tilers the methods and decisions behind a job. Some people accused him of giving trade knowledge away; Ken says the videos helped other tilers improve, brought attention to his work and carried on something his dad had done by teaching others.
He is equally honest about the less glamorous side of having an audience. Brand content can pull you away from the work you actually enjoy, and recommending a product you haven’t properly tested can damage the trust people place in you. Ken would still rather be tiling than spend every day turning a job into a sponsored video. You can see Ken’s work at Huds Tiling Services on Instagram; the episode gives you the stories behind the finished pictures.
Where can you watch Ken Hudson on Off The Job?
Watch the full Ken Hudson episode on YouTube for the royal handshake, the awkward sites and a large tile being wrestled into place while the client points a phone at it. Keiran and Pete also get him talking about trade referrals, Instagram and why a good finish starts long before the last tile goes down.
There’s a Gas Certificate App segment in the episode too. Ken is a tiler, so we’re not pretending it’s his tool. For qualified gas engineers listening alongside the tiling chat, Gas Certificate App helps with digital certificates and the job admin around them.
Want another Season 1 story about taking an unexpected route into the trades? Read how Carl Wilson Dennis started plumbing at 35.
