The Labour Government needs to invest in training and outreach now, to ‘Get Britain Building,’ says Mark Cuttriss Director at PAH Building & Construction

Following Labour’s landslide victory, Labour has not shied away from their pledges to increase housebuilding and lower immigration – but therein lies a problem. The number of construction workers in the UK has fallen by 14% since 20191 mainly due to EU citizens going back home as a result of Brexit and older workers retiring – leaving a skills gap that threatens to derail the entire construction industry.

With major projects such as HS2 and the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant facing delays due to lack of skilled workers, not to mention the 31% of SME construction companies who find themselves unable to find qualified staff2, slowing down projects across the land, Labour now needs to start to unlock projects and tackle the skills gap.

If there’s one thing that the construction industry excels at, however, it is problem solving; so it’s time the industry put its heads together and came up with a plan of action to keep Britain building. The first place to start has to be with education – when children start thinking about what they want to do with their lives, we need to make sure that construction is on that list of possibilities. Construction is the cornerstone of the built environment, and with 250,000 additional construction workers needed by 20282, it has never been more crucial for us to educate and inspire a new generation of workers on the vast opportunities it presents.

Obviously, we can’t fling open the gates of our building sites to 11-year-olds, but we could take the wonderful world of construction to them with projects, competitions, talks and a presence at careers fairs. It’s an approach that we know works – when STEM subjects were highlighted in schools, backed by outreach from major companies like Rolls Royce, the number of pupils going on to college or university to study engineering jumped by 14% in a decade3. In particular, we need to stress the variety of career opportunities on offer – with hard-to-fill vacancies ranging from project managers to site labourers, there really is something that might be of interest to every young person.

Secondly, we need to review the quality of apprenticeships. It’s a sorry indictment on the industry that while 31,000 young people began a construction apprenticeship in the past five years, more than 40% dropped out over concerns about the quality of training amid tight build schedules4. Apprentices are an investment, for the company they work with and for the industry as a whole, so any business that takes them on needs to be prepared to dedicate time and resources to giving them proper training.

The classroom-based side of apprenticeships needs reviewing too, to make sure that the techniques being taught are up-to-date and relevant; for example, the skills shortage is particularly evident in retrofitting, which requires skilled professionals to upgrade and futureproof the housing stock we already have. I’d like to see increased Government investment in specialised apprenticeships for young people to gain hands-on experience and training in retrofitting our aging housing stock, and in modern methods of construction, that will ultimately enable projects to be delivered more quickly and sustainably to meet demand. A long-term national strategy by Labour to train young people in green skills is also fundamental to ensure there is a pipeline in place to address the shortage.

Finally, we need to make young people, and older career-changers, aware of the many advantages of taking a job in this field. The current skills gap and lack of people joining the construction industry is creating significant problems and halting the speed of delivery for new homes and infrastructure projects we so urgently need, so it goes without saying that there are large numbers of jobs available for people at every stage, from entry-level to managerial, and plenty of opportunities to progress up the career ladder. According to the Financial Times, because of the shortage of staff, pay has increased dramatically in this sector, and wages in construction were 22% higher at the end of 2023 than at the start of 2019.

With great financial rewards and even greater job satisfaction, it’s time to convince both schoolchildren and job-hunters that they can have a rich and fulfilling career in construction.

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