Hard man with practical skills (5)

I believe the answer is:

handy

'with practical skills' is the definition.

'hard man' is the wordplay.
'hard' becomes 'h'.
'man' becomes 'andy' (I've seen this before**).
'h'+'andy'='HANDY'

(Other definitions for handy that I've seen before include "Convenient; skilful" , "Useful - competent" , "Local - nearby" , "Dexterous" , "quite useful" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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