Lockdown inspiration: The top 10 skills Brits want to learn most

Sure, you may be confined to your home unable to socialise with friends and family physically, but you will have a lot of free time on your hands, making it the perfect opportunity to learn a new skill. Maybe there’s something that you’ve always wanted to try but didn’t think that you’d be able to commit enough time to learn. So what can you learn in three months? Well, we may not have the 10,000 hours it takes to master a craft, but we do have 2,190 hours to give it a good go (minus time for working, sleeping, eating and relaxing of course).

Not only will learning a new skill prevent boredom over the next couple of months, it can also be incredibly rewarding and therapeutic, as well as potentially leading to the discovery of a new passion/talent that you never knew you had.

We asked 3,000 members of the public from across the UK to rank the top skills they would like to learn with the extra time that the current situation has afforded them. Culinary skills was the most popular category, with 35% of people looking to get in the kitchen and refine or improve their culinary skills. Crafting was the second most popular skills category (24%), with knitting the most favoured option, this was closely followed by musical skills (21%) such as learning to play guitar.

With services such as garages and hairdressers currently closed and food shopping a task many are trying to limit, it is also clear that people are keen to try and be more resourceful during lockdown by learning practical skills such as how to grow vegetables, repair cars and cut hair.

The top ten skills Brits most want to learn during the lockdown are how to:

1.  Bake bread
2. Knit: Our how to knit page is a great place to start
3. Play the guitar
4. Code/programme
5. Grow Vegetables
6. Speak Spanish
7. Cut hair
8. Photograph
9. Repair clothes: Our sewing inspiration page has some great resources for learning how to sew
10. Do basic car repairs

Like all good hobbies, these skills are easy to pick up, addictive, rewarding and hard to master. Aside from learning how to code, they all encourage time away from screens and all of them can easily take place within your own home (or garden), perfect for those who are working from home and in need of regular breaks from the laptop or are anxious about becoming glued to social media.

Our research also showed that 46% of people want to try these skills because they hope it will be beneficial for their mental health, 24% said they have always wanted to learn something new but never had the time, and 15% said it was to cure boredom.

When the results were broken down, it was revealed that the highest number of DIY mechanics were found up north in the cities of Newcastle and Edinburgh, while people in southern areas such as Brighton and Southampton were keener to try their hands at playing guitar.

Learning to code and programme was most popular in Bristol while knitting proved to be the most desired skill for people living in London.

Edward Griffith, founder of LoveCrafts.com, said,

“With people around the world social-distancing and confined to their homes for the foreseeable future, it’s no surprise that people are looking for new hobbies to keep themselves busy. For many, crafting provides an important lifeline to cope with uncertainty, loneliness, and sometimes long-term medical conditions.

“We hope that this list of top skills to learn will inspire people to try something new while they have a little extra time on their hands and support positive mental wellbeing, at a time when many of us need it most.”

If the whole family is stuck indoors, then we’ve got you covered. Explore our range of crafts to entertain the kids.

New to crafting? Visit our ultimate beginner’s guide to crafting here.