Bear Grylls and Ant and Dec are the celebrities people would most like to see at their door to carry out essential repair work to their home, according to new research from Walsall-based home assistance provider HomeServe. The TV adventurer, currently starring in Channel 4’s Celebrity Island, and the Saturday Night Takeaway hosts pipped footballer David Beckham and scientist Brian Cox to top spot in the survey.

Britain’s Got Talent favourite Amanda Holden was the most popular female pick, polling almost 4.5 per cent of the vote, followed by ‘Someone Like You’ singer Adele and Hollywood A-lister Angelina Jolie. 

But it wasn’t such good news for X-Factor judges Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh and Sharon Osborne. Just one per cent said they would select Cowell to tackle a tricky task in the home – and 0.5 per cent and 0.3 per cent said they would pick Osborne or Walsh respectively. Returning judge Nicole Scherzinger and host Dermot O’Leary fared slightly better. Almost two per cent of those asked named the American as their ideal DIY partner – and three per cent plumped for O’Leary.

The research also proved that despite their much publicised differences on social media, Katie Price and Katie Hopkins really do have something in common – the great British public wouldn’t want them in their homes with a wrench or a plunger! The feisty pair were voted among the celebs people least wanted to carry out basic repair work. Katie Price polled 8.7 per cent of the vote while her rival attracted 7.7 per cent.

Hollywood family the Kardashians topped the list of celebrities who people would least like to carry out repairs in their homes with a whopping 21 per cent, followed by TV funnyman Alan Carr.with 15 per cent. Greg Reed, Chief Marketing Officer at HomeServe said: “We wanted to have some fun with this survey for Gas Safety Week and to see which celebrities the great British public would let loose on their boilers. 
 
“The results are very interesting. Bear Grylls is famous for being able to use his knowledge and skills to find solutions in really difficult situations and that’s often what tradespeople have to do. He can turn his hand to almost anything so why wouldn’t he be able to fix a broken boiler?!

“We trust Ant and Dec and Amanda Holden enough to let them into our homes every Saturday night and very few celebrities are more down to earth than Adele - although whether they’d be able to bleed a radiator is another matter.”

The study of 2,000 UK homeowners was carried out by OnePoll on behalf of HomeServe to mark Gas Safety Week, which runs from September 19-25. HomeServe also looked at what qualities the ideal engineer would possess and which trades were the most trusted. 

The research showed that, overall, trustworthiness was found to be the most important quality for a tradesperson to have (67 per cent), followed by honesty and reliability.And across the professions, gas and heating engineers were found to be the most trustworthy traders (22 per cent) followed by electricians (11 per cent) and plumbers (8 per cent).