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Construction Skills Shortage – Lets Do Something About It!
Instead of just sitting contemplating the skills shortage, let’s do something about it!It is well known that in our sector, training budgets were slashed during the recession. We also lost an approximate 400,000 people from the industry, who took their skills and their experience elsewhere. 500,000 construction sector workers are due to hit retirement age in the next 10 years and in 2013, our industry only managed to turn out just over 7,000 apprentices.
This has left us with a severe skills shortage in our sector, from highly skilled roles such as surveyors and architects to hands on trades such as bricklayers, who are now in such short demand they are able to charge 3 times what they usually would.
The lack of new young talent coming into the sector means it’s going to be a long time until we can plug that skills gap – unless we start to do something about it.
We could just sit around and contemplate the problem, and perhaps put some strategies in place to deal with the problem. However I’ve decided I’m going to do everything I can to make an actual difference.
Last week I attended the Suffolk Skills Show – a roadshow currently touring the country giving young people the chance to speak to people who work in a range of sectors, including construction. I gave a key note speech with my RICS matrics hat on and spoke passionately about what a fantastic and varied industry construction is.
But it really got me thinking.
‘Why on earth are more construction companies not engaging in training and addressing the skills issue? Why are we not putting aspirational role models out there to engage with schools and the 14 and 15-year-olds who are deciding on their options?
Yet as an industry we collectively moan about the lack of decent students who want to join the sector. Maybe it’s because they don’t have anyone to look up to or, a negative image of the sector.
I cannot tackle the skills shortage on my own, but through events such as the Skills Show, through organisations such as RICS matrics and through initiatives, Raising The Bar, where I go into schools and give talks I am trying to influence where I can.
As an industry we need to work closely with schools and colleges to ensure that construction is given the qudos it deserves, that it is shown to be a fantastic career choice and that those who want to enter it are given access to as much information as possible to help them make the right decisions.
We also need to ensure that construction quickly becomes a career choice for the girls as well as the boys; that those 14 year old girls who are making their choices are thinking seriously about a career in construction. And that’s something that I can play a role in here in Suffolk.
