A Blueprint for Change

ROUNDTABLE WRITE UPS: PEOPLE

CASE FOR CHANGE AND ACTION PLAN

The ‘People’ Challenge There are 2.2 million people in the UK construction industry, and an additional 50,000 people are needed each year, according to the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), just to account for the number retiring and expected growth. After a decade post-2010 in which the number of sector job vacancies oscillated around the 25,000 mark, the latest official data suggests the figure is now, post pandemic, up by over 50% to close to 40,000. The Panel’s Experience Panellists said that while some younger people were undoubtedly coming in to the industry, this was not enough to make up for the ‘gap’ in skills, particularly of those with good experience in mid-career. Two panellists both said the engineers in their organisations had an average age of in the mid-fifties. Another said that while they had apprentices coming through, and construction managers in their forties and fifties, they had few young construction managers lined up to be the next generation of leaders. “In the middle there’s no-one, there’s just this hole,” they said. Panellists put this struggle with bringing people in to the sector down to a multiplicity of factors, including a failure to engage effectively enough with young people and career changers, and a poor public image of the industry. One cited a recent YouGov survey which found that three in five men and three quarters of women would not consider a career in construction, considering it ‘dirty’ and ‘strenuous’. While there was an admission that some site-based work is inevitably less flexible than many office-based jobs, panellists also felt the sector needed to communicate benefits better.

Unsurprisingly, employers complain about a shortage of the skilled workers they need. In its latest survey, three quarters of Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) members said they are struggling to recruit skilled operatives – the equal highest on record. Meanwhile, the prediction of an ageing workforce is being borne out – the CITB says the proportion above 55 years’ old grew by 40% in the decade from 2012.

This perception problem was seen as contributing to the continuing difficulty in getting women to see construction as a genuine option. “I think perceptions need to change from when they’re very young, they’re really formed from the age of seven,” said one panellist. Beyond the perception issue, there were concerns that the pathways into the sector need reform. In particular, that more routes are needed for those with limited academic qualifications, given that even apprenticeships require minimummaths and English grades – something one panellist said was a ‘massive’ hurdle. Some said the influence of social media means younger people are looking for other things. One said: “Our organ isation is looking at [bringing in] prisoners, at the army route, we go to schools, we’ve got graduate programmes – we do all of this, but we’ve still got a shortage. “The problem is everybody thinks they can be an influencer and earn £100,000, and they don’t want to do any work for a living. It’s considerably worse now than two years ago.”