By Lesley McLeod, chief executive, Association for Project Safety
EVERYWHERE you turn there’s building works. And, on larger sites, there are big signs shouting out for bricklayers. People working in the UK’s built environment have replaced moaning about the weather with talking about the perceived skills shortage, particularly in skilled trades.
The Federation of Master Builders (FMB) recently reported that nearly half of its members were experiencing difficulties recruiting, along with brickies, both carpenters and joiners.
I work for the Association for Project Safety (APS), a body that emphasises the importance of taking a whole life approach to every project – from concept to decommissioning and rebuilding. And we get worried because there is always a risk that – when labour is thin on the ground, time is short and budgets tight – people rush and may cut corners, making projects less safe for everyone.
Against this backdrop – and a picture of increased demand, particularly in the domestic market with repair and maintenance doing better than the average – we decided to find out if what was true for talented tradespeople also held good for the professional end of construction – the architects and civil engineers, the surveyors and technologists.
So, we asked. But didn’t quite get the results we expected.
Our members said they were able to fill their vacancies. That ought to have been comforting news. But there was no queue of willing workers. Instead, to get the staff they wanted, people were paying more money, often offering enhanced benefits and sometimes even accepting less that idea qualifications. When they were recruiting, they were tapping pals – and pals of pals – on the shoulder. What they were not doing was attracting new blood into the industry.
Add to this a demographic time bomb and you start having sleepless nights.
More than half of our respondents said they had been in the same role for more than six years.
It wasn’t uncommon for them to have been around almost long enough to build HS2 – with many having had the same job for more than 15 years. So, it shouldn’t come as much of a shock to find that there’s more than a few thinking of hanging up their set squares and retiring in the next three years or so.
You may think this serves the construction industry right. And, sadly, there’s some truth in that. The sector hasn’t done nearly enough to train up the next generation. To be even more brutal, there’s a lot to be done to make the industry a career of choice and that means not just improving opportunities and professional competence but the attitudes and behaviours that put people off applying.
But it can’t all be repaired overnight. So, in the meantime – if the country is going to build more, build better, and build beautiful – it’s going to need a bit of help. And that is one of the reasons we are talking to the Westminster government to see if the post-Brexit employment rules can be relaxed to allow more people to enter the UK.
It’s not a permanent solution. But it may just buy enough time to rebuild. UK construction needs to attract new talent because the industry can’t keep eating its own tail.
