The new Prime Minister’s vision to offer technical subjects to 14-year-olds has been welcomed by insulation specialist Actis.
A long-term champion of encouraging young people into the construction industry, the company says enabling teenagers to explore practical subjects and ‘the trades’ will be of immense help in tackling the sector’s skills gap.
Although, along with fellow industry professionals, the company says it’s vital that the routes to employment are clearly defined, that the training is delivered by suitably qualified people, and that young trainees will be accepted by a wide range of employers to ensure the plan ‘has teeth.’
Andy Burnham’s announcement follows many years of calls for more to be done to ensure there are sufficient skilled tradespeople within construction industry – not least to enable the government to achieve its target of delivering 1.5 million homes within the current parliament.
The NHBC, Checkatrade and the Association of Project Managers have all said that strong investment and sustained action are required to bridge the construction industry skills gap, with the NFRC (National Federation of Roofing Contractors) saying its members state finding skilled people is one of their biggest challenges.
Actis is playing its part by upskilling existing professionals via its RIBA-approved CPD training courses and interesting young people in the industry through school and college outreach sessions.
Its UK and Ireland sales director Mark Cooper adds that in addition to training and recruiting more people, the housebuilding industry must embrace speedier construction methods to help compensate for a smaller workforce.
That means more offsite construction, which can be around 30% faster than traditional brick and block, thus increasing output capacity.
“Our insulation systems are used in many of these modular homes. As the products can be installed by less experienced members of the construction team, this frees up the longer serving colleagues to carry out some of the more skilled tasks,” explained Mark.
“As they are factory built, such homes are also known to deliver more consistent quality and more effective thermal efficiency.”
