09 Jan As government demands increase, the pool of tradespeople continues to decline
The UK construction industry has been grappling with the shrinking pool of skilled tradespeople, and now is on track to lose out on £98 billion of economic growth by 2030 due to a shortage of 250,000 tradespeople. Amidst this, the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board has announced it will invest £1 million for Regional Skills Hubs over the next two years to boost training provider capacity and grow new entrant numbers. However, experts are raising their concerns about how this funding is not enough to help meet government demand. Construction expert and broadcaster of Fix Radio – the UK’s only national radio station dedicated to builders and the trades – Clive Holland, argues that widespread neglect shown towards construction has sparked a litany of crises that risk the survival of the industry.
With the government’s net zero targets increasing demand, the sector needs an extra 225,000 workers by 2027 to keep up, even before accounting for the pledged 1.5 million homes a Labour government will build should they win the next general election. Highlighting the growing decline, roughly one in five UK-born construction workers were over 55 in 2011, and now will have reached retirement age, according to the ONS. Exacerbating the national skills crisis, the survey by Deconstruction also revealed that 77% of full-time students aged between 18 and 24 would not consider a career in the construction industry, resulting in the average age of the workforce getting older.
Concerning data from the Department for Education stats show the number of completed apprenticeships in England fell from 12,420 in 2018 to 7,700 in 2022 limiting the much-needed extra recruits for the construction sector. A national study commissioned by Fix Radio also unveiled that close to a third of small businesses in the sector are on the brink of collapse, with tradespeople desperate for more young people to enter the construction industry. Highlighting the significance of the issue in a microcosm, each year 17,500 people apply for apprenticeships as an electrician, yet only 2,500 pass their course annually, with a further 8,000 electricians leaving the industry every year.
Key stats:
38% of British tradespeople agree that their levels of stress and anxiety are now at their highest levels of their life
27% of British tradespeople agree that their business is on the cusp of collapse due to lack of guidance
32% of British tradespeople agree that they really want to make their business bigger but don’t know how
As the number of apprentices under the age of 19 has fallen by half since 2016/17 due to the lack of financial incentives, Fix Radio reinforces the importance of acquiring new talent to tackle the growing skills deficit gap in the construction sector and ease the pressure on the existing workers. The need to support sole traders and small businesses is further reinforced in Fix Radio’s nationally representative research which has revealed nearly one in three construction firms are currently on the cusp of collapse.
Clive Holland, host of The Clive Holland Show on Fix Radio, shares his thoughts on how the skills deficit has affected the construction sector:
“The UK construction sector is facing a huge skills deficit – experienced tradespeople left the sector in droves during the pandemic and efforts to recruit young people into the trades are failing.
“According to government figures the number young people entering apprenticeships has fell by nearly 10% in the last year and the Construction Products Association estimated that over 220,000 workers have left the industry since the summer of 2019. The shortage of skills will make the building more expensive – last year saw 6% wage inflation.
“The construction industry is failing to address this growing problem. There needs to be a long-term strategy where construction firms and trade bodies work closely with the education sector and government agencies to achieve shared goals.”
