Mark Farrar, ConstructionSkills
Contractors are under pressure, but laying the foundations of a future skills shortages by under-recruiting would be an avoidable own goal.
We’re entering a period when demo-graphics show us there will be fewer people in the 16-24 age bracket in the next ten years, and significantly fewer – up to half a million – at the end of that period. So, particularly with increased competition from other sectors, the industry is going to have to work harder to secure its share of good candidates, and look in a more diverse talent pool.
In view of this challenge and the skills required to meet the low carbon agenda, it is vital that the industry keeps recruiting if it’s to avoid skills gaps opening up two or three years ahead. So the CIOB skills survey (CM June p8), which shows employers are scaling back on the recruitment of graduates and apprentices, is certainly concerning.
At ConstructionSkills we’re looking at different ways we can help the industry maintain new entrants, undergraduates as well as apprentices, and ensuring the grants scheme responds to employer demand, and perhaps even stimulates it.
We are looking at models the industry can use to train apprentices, such as Group Training Associations. Here, several smaller employers can gather together to share the employment risk of taking on an apprentice. It’s early days, but one or two GTAs are currently being discussed. We would set up a separate vehicle company that the employers share in, with up to 50 SMEs pooling apprentices. At the end of the training period we’d seek to ensure a permanent role for each individual.
Another model would be a host employer model, where a larger contractor takes on the apprentices, but utilises them within the supply chain. There are working examples of this, but the challenge now is to establish more.
The demographic landscape should encourage employers to look at new entrants in theirs 30s and 40s. But the government – and we deal with four national governments, each with a slightly different nuance to its funding – typically fully funds 16-18 year olds, but financial support tapers off thereafter. This can acts as a barrier for employers, with the impact felt most in high-cost trades, or in specialist areas where employers may prefer to draw from an older population.
But we also find that older trainees tend to be from diverse backgrounds, with more women and black, Asian or minority ethnic entrants. So by recruiting trainees from outside the traditional age bracket employers are also countering the diversity issue, and winning on two fronts. Funding for this age group is certainly an area where we’re having ongoing conversations with the new government.
We’ve been doing a lot of work on procurement, to ensure that when the public sector lets a contract, training and the requirement to take on new entrants are part of the terms. We’ve had good success with government departments and local authorities on this, and would hope that this continues under the new coalition. Where this is done fairly, on a level playing field, the industry welcomes it as a means of attracting new entrants.
Our focus has been with public sector clients as a starting point, but clearly private sector clients also have a role to play in facilitating training. Some good private sector corporate clients have already taken this idea on and run with it.
We’re also hoping that the Construction and Built Environment diploma will stimulate demand for apprenticeships. We’re coming up to the point where the first cohort will be passing through, and we will be watching that quite closely to see where the students end up going.
It’s certainly not an easy time for graduates. We will be maintaining our grant funding for year-out placements, but we’re also looking at workplace internships for graduates. But we need to see more clearly where the coalition government is going on this, and the encouragement it might offer employers.
The new government needs to be alive to the power of construction to sustain employment, and to develop skills for the future, particularly with regard to the carbon agenda. If it’s serious about carbon reduction, skills and employment, it needs to help the industry move forward.
Mark Farrar is chief executive of ConstructionSkills
