Construction & Built Environment Workforce Development Partnership

An enthusiastic group of employers, education & training providers, and strategic partners attended the latest Construction and Built Environment Work Force Development Partnership (WDP), held on February 6th at Newbury College. Presentations focused on how we can attract more people into the sector to meet the considerable skills and workforce challenges it is facing in the next 2 to 3 years and beyond.
Lawrence Wright, our Employer Champion from Helix Construct introduced the session followed by an update on the Berkshire and Oxfordshire Local Skills Improvement Plans and current government skills policy from Simon Barrable, LSIP Engagement Officer. These provoked discussion on the need to attract more teachers/trainers into the sector to meet student demand for training places.

There was then a focus on getting harder-to-reach groups into the sector, with presentations from Michael Guard, Deputy Head of AfC Virtual College which supports Care Leavers in education and on into employment. This was followed by Sarah Brinkworth, South Central Prisons Employment Lead, covering the potential construction workforce represented by prison leavers and the support her team gives to these individuals and to employers.

We discussed the outcomes of a recent Construction Roundtable Event held at Reading University. We focused this on ‘Why Construction is Losing the War for Talent’, with Mathewe Bennett from Next Curve Construction leading the discussion. We all felt there was an opportunity for more regional events and communication to promote the sector. We also felt that there was a need for a national campaign around recruitment to construction, in a similar vein to those used for the armed forces. We will seek to take this concept forward.

We finished with a presentation on career changers from Rachel Kay and Gareth Lautenberg from Learning People. People looking to change careers offer real potential for the sector, both in terms of growing the workforce and increasing its diversity.

The group committed to several actions for this quarter:

• Increase engagement with harder-to-reach groups, including care leavers, prison leavers, and career changers.
• Explore the issue of the shortage of teaching capacity to deliver training to the numbers of construction employees we are trying to bring into the sector. Possible solutions might include the expansion of employer-led teaching initiatives and the development of structured and funded programs to bring more industry professionals into education.
• Explore the potential of developing a national marketing campaign to promote the sector and of regional approaches to attracting more local people into construction.
• Encourage Tier 1 and Tier 2 construction companies to provide structured support for SMEs, including training models, mentorship programs and further levy transfer.
• Ensure participation from supply chain employers in the next meeting to discuss potential collaborative solutions.