Three Generations, One Trade
When Seth Hall entered the regional round of the Plumbing World Young Plumber of the Year 2025 competition, he was following a path his family has walked for more than half a century. His grandfather Brian Hall founded Hallrite Plumbing and Gasfitting Limited in Gisborne in 1970. His older brother Cody won the national Young Plumber of the Year title in 2023. Seth left school at Year 12 to start his apprenticeship, has qualified, and is now training his younger brother Brad in the same trade.
It is exactly the kind of story that the competition is designed to surface — not just technical skill, but what a trades career looks like in practice, across time, within a family, in a regional city.
What the Competition Tests
The Plumbing World Young Plumber of the Year competition is structured around practical challenges that reflect real-world job site conditions: diagnosing faults, working under time pressure, demonstrating technical knowledge, and communicating effectively about complex problems. Seth describes enjoying the diagnostic element most — the process of identifying what is wrong and working out a methodical solution.
He deliberately avoided seeking advice from his brother Cody during the competition, wanting to reach the national finals on his own merit. That independence is its own form of professional development.
The Financial Reality of Trades
One aspect of Seth’s story that resonates beyond the competition is his debt position. He has zero student debt. Compared to a peer who spent three or four years at university accumulating tens of thousands of dollars in loans, Seth has been earning, learning, and building a professional network since he left school. Ninety-seven percent of New Zealand businesses are small enterprises — the kind of businesses that trade-qualified people start, run, and grow.
“You can make such a great life and such great, life-long friends through trades,” Seth has said. The competition gives him a platform to say that to a wider audience of young people who may not have considered what a trades career actually looks like at 25, 35, or in his family’s case, 55 years in.
The Networking Value
Beyond the technical elements, Seth values the competition as a networking opportunity — meeting other young tradespeople from across the country and building relationships with industry suppliers and employers. That network, built early in a career, compounds over time into referrals, partnerships, and the professional reputation that sustains a business.
For employers, competitions like Young Plumber of the Year are worth watching for the same reason: they surface emerging talent before that talent becomes widely known, and the young tradespeople who invest time in competition-level preparation are demonstrating the kind of initiative that distinguishes excellent workers from capable ones.
