Family-owned Draper Tools is marking its 107th year by celebrating the long service of 107 employees who have each worked for the business for at least 10 years.
The 107 long-serving colleagues represent a significant proportion of Draper’s 259-strong workforce across the UK and Ireland. Among them are 58 employees with between 10 and 24 years of service, 41 with between 25 and 39 years, and eight who have worked for the company for more than 40 years.
Overall, almost one in five Draper employees has been with the business for at least 25 years, with the group’s long-serving workforce representing more than 1,900 years of combined service.
Rather than marking each anniversary individually as it normally does, Draper brought as many of its long-serving employees together as possible for a series of photographs at its Chandler’s Ford and North Baddesley sites. The portraits will be displayed throughout the company’s headquarters and shared online during October.
Tom Draper, Co-Chair of Draper Tools, said: “It feels very special to have so many long serving colleagues at Draper and we want to say a huge thank you to them. Their passion and expertise have helped shape the company into what it is today, and we’re all very proud of this milestone. It really is a testament to the supportive, friendly and nurturing culture we’ve built together.
“We’re still growing, and more than 100 people have joined us in the last five years alone. We’re always keen to hear from talented local people looking for somewhere to build a career. Hopefully some of them will be celebrating their own milestones here one day.”
Draper Tools was founded in 1919 by Bert Draper and remains family-owned and operated by the fourth generation of the Draper family.
The company has continued to invest in its operations in recent years, including a new warehouse, a large-scale solar panel installation and the acquisition of specialist trade brands Van Vault and Defender.
Draper’s office operations remain based at Chandler’s Ford, while its warehousing activities have moved to North Baddesley. The former logistics space at Chandler’s Ford has been repurposed as Draper Self Storage, which opened in 2024.
The site is also set to gain a new use, with a six-court indoor padel centre operated by Padel Stars due to open in the former logistics space.
