In the run up to the general election, I had a chance conversation with a branch manager at one of the UK’s main housebuilders. I asked him which party he thought would deliver more homes; the response came in the form of a laugh. He said it really didn’t matter how many more homes each side was promising, the reality was that we didn’t have the workforce and skills to deliver them.
Still more, he said that they – and their competitors – were struggling to get enough young people into the ‘training pipeline’ to even maintain the current level of housebuilding, never mind increase it. Like any skilled job, there is a lag between when the need for it is known, and when the person receives sufficient training to perform that job. If you want to be able to build more houses in three or four years’ time, you need more people entering the system today who, with time, can become the bricklayers, the CAD engineers, the crane operators, and the thermal insulation technicians that you will need. And that’s not happening.
There’s more than one reason for this. The stop-start way the UK planning system works and our systemic underbuilding across much of the country are crucial. However, he was particularly keen to highlight the obstructive role of schools. He gave an example of a recent careers fair at a local secondary school: two years ago his firm attended and did decent trade – several students were interested in the different career paths they had to offer, and signed up for more information on apprenticeships. The following year, he was surprised to be told his firm would not be allowed to participate. When he probed further, the head-teacher explained that the school had decided to focus on exhibitors that encouraged students to attend university. The suggestion was made that his offering was effectively ‘too popular’, and it would ‘reflect badly’ on her and the school to see a decrease in the number of leavers going on to university.
Whether this decision was driven by parents, colleagues, governors, or others is unclear, and probably doesn’t matter, the point is that people on the ‘front-line’ of home delivery in this country are being held back by an institutional bias against vocational education. We find ourselves in a situation where an ageing workforce, a return of many skilled workers to the EU, and a desire to build more homes is creating cavernous gap in skills. And just when we need the apprenticeship pumps operating at full tilt to help fill it, they’re being choked off to little more than a dribble.
This may be anecdotal evidence, but recent statistics seem to support it. The UK Trade Skills Index 2023 found that construction and trade vacancies are now at record highs, and estimated that just to prevent the skills gap getting any worse (never mind narrowing it), we will need to deliver 25,000 apprenticeships per year for the next decade in key roles like carpenters, electricians, and plumbers. To do this we need to increase the number of people beginning apprenticeships by 38per cent against current levels … and yet the actual number being delivered is decreasing year on year.
When it comes to putting more homes on the ground, there will be a number of obstacles with which the new Government will have to contest, from the planning system, to material costs and mortgage rates. But, according to the people tasked with actually building the things, a critical bottleneck is skills and people. And – at least when it comes to apprenticeships – it would seem that good old-fashioned British snobbery might be to blame.
Tom Bennett is a councilor in Kensington and Chelsea and an entrepreneur.