Charlie Mullins is a British entrepreneur best known as the founder of Pimlico Plumbers, the London-based home-services company he grew from a small operation into one of the UK plumbing industry’s most recognizable names. His career is unusual because it began far from a conventional corporate path. Mullins left school at 15 without formal qualifications and entered the trade as an apprentice plumber before starting his own company in 1979. Working initially with a second-hand van and his tools, he built Pimlico around a highly visible brand, round-the-clock service and an approach that treated plumbing as a professional customer-service business rather than simply a local trade. Over the following decades, Pimlico expanded well beyond plumbing into other property-maintenance services and grew into a business reported to generate around £50 million annually before Mullins eventually stepped away.
The scale of that journey made Mullins one of Britain’s most prominent trade-industry entrepreneurs. In the 2015 New Year Honors, he was appointed an OBE for services to the plumbing industry, with the official honors list identifying him as founder and chief executive of Pimlico Plumbers. His biggest business transition came in 2021, when Pimlico was sold to US home-services company Neighborly. Published reports have given slightly different figures for the transaction, while Mullins’ official website describes the sale as being worth more than £140 million. The deal ended his direct involvement with the company he had spent more than four decades building. Mullins later publicly described selling Pimlico as a decision he regretted, making the exit an important part of his story rather than simply the conclusion of his business career.
Instead of retiring from the industry, Mullins has returned to London’s home-services market through WeFix London. The company says it was established in October 2024 by three generations of the Mullins family, including Charlie, his son Scott and his grandson Ashley. Mullins serves as chairman, while Scott is CEO and Ashley is managing director, giving the venture a family-business structure similar to the entrepreneurial environment that shaped his earlier success. WeFix provides services including plumbing, heating, electrical work and drainage, bringing Mullins back into a sector with which his name has been associated for decades. Alongside his business activities, he has remained a visible media commentator and public personality. His move from teenage apprentice to founder of a major London services brand, followed by a nine-figure business exit and a return to the trade with another family venture, helps explain why Charlie Mullins continues to attract attention as a distinctive figure in British entrepreneurship.
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