The construction industry needs more than a quarter of a million extra workers by 2026. The sector’s workforce is aging, and between 1991 and 2011 a 13% increase in UK construction workers aged over 45 was recorded by the Office for National Statistics. According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, by 2022 1.2 million workers were aged over 65.
Older workers are retiring from a physically demanding but highly skilled profession; without sufficient new talent poised to inherit their skills, these are vanishing. An ageing workforce, coupled with a lack of younger generations interested in construction careers, is triggering a severe skills shortage in the industry.
Changing the narrative
To counteract this skills shortage, it is crucial to reposition the narrative around construction careers. Construction careers are no longer just traditional building crafts but can mean working offsite in tech-focussed roles, working with AI, virtual reality or drones. Construction is a viable and attractive path, and the misconceptions - that it’s poorly paid, dirty and lacking in innovation - must be dispelled.
At Quintain we have been helping to educate young people on the opportunities in the construction sector, to help provide the sector with the necessary new lifeblood - whether this means using social media to inspire young people around the industry or visiting schools to engage directly with children. We provide all our staff at Quintain with two volunteering days every year, so they can attend schools or job fairs, or help young people with their CVs or interview preparation. We are also providing funding and opportunities to local primary schools, that enables teachers to introduce young people to the world of construction careers.
As well as educating young people, construction opportunities need to be primed for school leavers. Increasingly, construction companies are using apprenticeships to entice prospective students, with the promise of skills and opportunities alongside avoiding student debt. Apprenticeships enable trainees to learn on the job, equipping them with practical skills and allowing them to gain nationally recognised qualifications, such as City & Guilds for onsite trades and BA and BSc degrees for office-based roles.
Section 106 agreements continue to be crucial to ensuring that developers nurture their surrounding communities, including encouraging these organisations to plant learning opportunities in the local area. But we believe these should be viewed as the bare minimum, with developers and companies that can, doing more.
Working together
Like-minded developers and contractors need to be able to connect in order to facilitate discussions, sharing best practices around fostering young talent in the sector. By engaging with other local developers and partner contractors, we can tune into the current challenges of the sector, identifying exactly where local labour needs lie.
We have invited local developers around Wembley Park into a working group along with the local authority, who are the first source of job opportunities in the area. By sharing insight on the local construction skills landscape, Brent Council can help plug these gaps, promoting current opportunities in their job centres.
The collective knowledge gained from working groups can also help inform local educational institutions. We have engaged with College of North West London, helping them to develop their course curriculum to meet current and future demands within the sector, and allowing their students to be better prepared for the job opportunities immediately available.
By working closely with local developers and contractors, the local authority, and educational institutions, developers can gain an awareness of their local sector’s immediate needs and ensure these are filled.
The construction industry must be ready to engage young people, redefining what it is to work in construction, to ensure the sector’s future fortification. Reshaping the narrative around careers in construction, providing attractive opportunities to younger generations, and working together to understand the specific challenges of the local construction pipeline, are imperative to ensuring we can continue to build and our construction industry can thrive.
Author: Matt Voyce, Executive Director of Construction
