The global picture for skills in construction is set out in the report showing that, over the next five years, there will be major growth in demand for construction workers and that occupational skills are transferable across the globe. In the middle east, India, SAARC and ASEAN regions - all territories in which NOCN Group operates as a leading Awarding and Assessment Organisation in the construction sector - forecasters indicate that an estimated 39.3 million more construction workers are required to supplement the existing workforce of 94.9 million in this part of the world.
The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) estimates that the UK will need an extra 250,000 workers by 2030 and the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) forecasts that the total could be 280,000. The new Labour Government’s plan to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years is estimated to add a further 150,000 jobs to these figures, making the total skills shortfall 430,000. This will require a nearly 15% increase in the construction industry’s workforce.
The new ‘Global Construction Skills’ report from NOCN Group investigates the UK’s huge requirement for extra construction workers to achieve economic growth, boost mega infrastructure projects, improve living standards, and reach Net Zero targets.
The report makes a number of key recommendations for both Government and Industry.
For Government this includes:
- Establish a long-term realistic strategic plan for investment in housing, infrastructure and Net-Zero to give industry confidence in the future.
- Develop proposals for the Growth and Skills Levy in respect of construction with an aim to establishing a single coherent, less bureaucratic, arrangement across the UK which could also embrace the current CITB and ECITB Levies.
- Combine the DfE work on construction skills and training programmes as well as standards, occupational maps and competency frameworks into a single programme of work under the Building Safety Regulator and Super Sectors Programme, utilising the work that IfATE has already done. This is essential in order to address the proposals in the Grenfell Report and the move to a single regulatory regime. The standards part of IfATE’s responsibilities would not then transfer to Skills England. Integral to this would be to re-introduce UK wide occupational standards, with more flexibility for SMEs. This would create a situation like that which was in place prior to 2015.
The report’s key recommendations for the construction industry include:
- Developing the occupational standards and upskilling courses that industry needs.
- Improving competence levels, particularly for the large part of the workforce that are not even at Level 2 – this will help to respond to the challenges presented by the Grenfell Inquiry.
- Increase productivity, make the workforce more diverse, and implement use of digitalisation, AI and new methods of working.
The report also highlights factors holding back construction skills development including the requirement to improve the overall level of competency needed to address the skills and competency gaps arising from the Grenfell Tower disaster of 2017. The Super Sector Programme being run by Department of Business & Trade (DBT) and the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) is a key initiative designed to address this.
Graham Hasting Evans, chief executive of NOCN Group, concludes:
“This Global Construction Skills report highlights that closing the UK skills gap is about much more than importing workers from overseas and that increasing productivity globally is key.
When we look at what has been happening over the last 10 years, and particularly the last five years since the English Apprenticeship Levy came in, there has been a decline in number of trades and operative workers coming into the construction industry. There is also the historical problem of the high number of people who have no or only a Level 1 qualification and hence cannot demonstrate competency at Level 2 (which is required to obtain a ‘Blue Card’ to work on-site).”
The full report can be viewed here - https://www.nocn.org.uk/news/new-international-construction-report-highlights-implications-of-skills-gaps-for-uks-economic-growth.asp
