Britain desperately needs 300,000 construction workers. one social enterprise is providing a blueprint for others to follow

HOUSING

A total of 300,000 construction workers have exited the industry in the last five years – one for every house the Conservatives pledged, but failed, to build each year.

With mounting housing and climate crises, it would be putting it mildly to say there’s an urgent need to build new homes and retrofit the UK’s 28 million existing residential properties.

But the message from housebuilders is that now is not the time. Some of the country’s biggest housing associations recently told the Financial Times they simply cannot afford to build the affordable homes that are desperately needed due to high interest rates and costs in the current recession.

But even if they could ramp up building, who is going to carry out the work?

Analysis from Noble Francis, the economics director at the Construction Products Association (CPA), paints a picture of an industry ravaged by Covid, Brexit and inherent instability.

As part of the 300,000 construction workers who have departed, Francis found that workers from EU countries, mainly aged between 25 and 39, have been unable to continue due to stricter visa requirements, and have only been partially replaced.

Meanwhile, there have been big losses of UK-born construction workers between 45 and 59 years of age who have either retired early or retrained to go into another industry.

The loss of skills and experience has “ripped out the backbone of the industry”, according to Francis, with 86% of the sector comprising small and medium-sized firms.

The results of labour shortages and the brain drain of experience are there for all to see. The CPA currently estimates the government will miss its 300,000 a year housebuilding target by 40% overall.

The Great British Insulation Scheme isn’t faring much better. Just 2% of the 300,000 homes it was targeting have been retrofitted in its first year.

What’s the solution?

The workforce issues are not an easy problem to fix in a volatile industry where a third of all construction workers are employed on a temporary rather than a permanent basis, according to the Construction Industry Training Board.

“If we want industry to invest in skills, capacity and offsite construction then the housebuilding sector needs to have more stable demand medium term and long term, which is only going to happen if the government invests in soc