Targeting construction skills for the future

The construction industry needs to recruit 250,000 new entrants in the next five years to keep up with demand, Carl Licorish from the CITB (Construction Industry Training Board) customer engagement team told GIRI members at the recent members’ meeting on skills and competence. He explained that CITB is working to identify and target areas of skills demand and liaising with the UK Government to influence investment and connect industry with available programmes and resources.

The increased demand for skills in construction will be driven largely by government targets around new and retrofitted homes and the infrastructure pipeline, said Carl. “We expect to see growth over the next four to five years, averaged at 2.2%, and we need to see roughly 40-50,000 people coming into the industry a year to meet this demand. Our forecasts suggest we will need a total construction workforce of 2.75 million by 2029.”

Mapping demand

As a result, much of CITB’s activity is based around demand and skills intelligence, and Carl highlighted a number of initiatives in this area, including two project planning tools with various partners. One of these involves mapping out all the major projects across Great Britain, and the other aggregates live job vacancies in the sector. 

Through Go Construct Careers, a new addition to the CITB’s construction careers portal Go Construct, the organisation has also created a dedicated jobs portal where employers and candidates can post and search jobs. “We hope this will generate additional intelligence to help us map demand areas and will inform where we want to invest and target our resources – and influence government to do the same.”

Training and skills planning

Alongside efforts to attract new entrants to the industry, which include a new entrant support team, Department of Work and Pensions support, and apprenticeship hubs, a lot of CITB’s work aims to connect businesses and industry with the government funding and programmes available to help build skills in the sector.

“Cross-sector skills boot camps are a prime example,” said Carl. “The government is putting millions into these and there are quite hefty subsidies coming through. We want the construction industry to understand how they can benefit from and access these, and we are working with the Department of Education to raise awareness in the sector. We also have various skills hubs, many of these connected with housing targets and apprenticeships.”

He added that CITB is working closely with the Construction Skills Mission Board to create a plan for the government’s £600 million construction skills package that aims to bring in an additional 60,000 skilled construction workers over the next four years. “There are a lot of conversations going on around things like foundation apprenticeships, placements, and work experience. We are also establishing ten technical excellence colleges and a number of other hubs, so there is plenty coming down the line.”

Carl noted that CITB is working closer than ever with the government when it comes to skills planning. “The government wants to know where they should be focusing their investment, so we have gone back to our research and we know that there are certain occupations in demand –brick work, carpentry and joinery, groundworkers, plant operatives, civil engineers, architects, surveyors – and we are using this data to steer government to target some of that spending.”

Local interventions

Several strategies aim to create impact at a local level, including an initiative to increase quality and capacity. “For example, we have an initiative that enables employers to partner with a college and develop an ongoing relationship, allowing both parties to better understand local projects and the needs of businesses, and organise ongoing activities and interactions with students and governance bodies. What we want is better channels between employers and learners, colleges and stakeholders, because this leads to courses that are better informed and employers who are better connected.” 

CITB is also expanding its field-based teams around the country and its specialist New Entrants Support Team (NEST) advisors. NEST focuses on apprenticeships, engaging primarily with SMEs and helping them navigate the apprenticeship system, access funding and find providers, as well as mentoring services to help retain apprentices.

Regional interventions

“We have two flagship projects at the moment – the Employer Network and the Training Provider Network,” said Carl. “The Employer Network was a response to feedback from employers that our grant system for training is too complicated. The Employer Network gives the money to training providers so they can provide a discount to employers at point of sale of up to 70%. The idea is that you can turn up, get training at a discount, and not have to fill in any forms.”

He added that the Employer Network is also about CITB tapping into local intelligence and it has set up 33 steering groups across the country. “We are asking these steering groups to tell us what the local skills needs are so we can align the training discounts through the Employer Network. This is still in a pilot phase, but the long-term vision is that the majority of funding will come through this route in future.”

The other project is the Training Provider Network, which is about creating a community of training providers working in construction. “We want to have more regular conversations with that community so they can inform our policies and strategies and comply with our quality standards, and this will link into the Employer Network.”

Engaging with CITB

Carl finished by emphasising that CITB is keen to engage with GIRI members, particularly around competencies and embedding certain skills, such as AI. “We are currently working on several competency frameworks, working in-line with the superstructure work of the Construction Leadership Council to develop basic competencies for various occupations. So there are good opportunities for engagement with members on the strategic side but also on underpinning standards where we are working to embed certain competencies and then create courses that align with those competencies.”

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