UK Construction Skills Shortage 2026: Inside the Labour Crisis & Recruitment Frontline

The UK construction industry continues to face mounting pressure from labour shortages, skills gaps and ongoing market uncertainty. While headlines focus on project delays and rising costs, the real story often sits on the ground, with contractors struggling to secure reliable, qualified workers.

Jimmy Webb is joined by Riley Pond, Contracts Manager at The Labour Desk, to discuss why construction is struggling to find workers, and what recruiters are doing about it.

We cover:

• The ongoing labour shortages
• Why asbestos operatives are so hard to find 
• The temp vs perm debate
• Market uncertainty and signs of recovery
• Investing in training to fix the skills gap
• Supporting ex-offenders into construction

A standout moment in this episode of UK Construction Podcast highlights Riley’s visit to a prison to promote careers in construction and the powerful follow-up when one of the inmates later secured employment on site.

Construction has its challenges right now. But it also has real opportunity.

If you’re in construction, recruitment, or trying to understand where the labour market is heading, this one’s worth a watch.

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Thank you to our sponsor for this episode, WebMotion Media:

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Special shoutout to our dynamic host Jimmy Webb of Construction Cogs: https://constructioncogs.com

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Transcript

From groundbreaking projects to game-changing innovations, the UK construction podcast brings you face-to-face with the industry's brightest minds and boldest thinkers. Each episode features candid conversations with construction leaders, architects, engineers, and on-site experts who share their hard-won insights and behind-the-scenes perspectives. We cut through the noise to deliver actionable intelligence on market trends, emerging technologies, and the forces shaping British building.

JIMMY:

Welcome to the show, everyone. Today, we're delving into the world of recruitment. We have Riley Pond, who's a contract manager at construction recruitment firm The Labour Disc.

Thanks for joining us, Riley.

RILEY:

Thanks for having me.

JIMMY:

Yeah, I'm glad you made it back. You had a good night out last night, didn't you, Heather?

RILEY:

Last minute night out. They're always the best ones. But yeah, I travelled back this morning.

Yeah. It was really good.

JIMMY:

Yeah, nice, nice. I see you've got a nice dude there in the background. Pig's head, hog's head.

RILEY:

No, it should be all right.

JIMMY:

It should be all right. Before we start this, I thought I'd let the viewers in on sort of how we met. So I'd seen Riley on LinkedIn a little bit because she's on there quite a lot.

And I thought, well, it should be pretty cool to interview. So I hadn't contacted her. And then I'd started a new job at Liverpool Street.

And then all of a sudden, she started appearing on train, like getting on the next stop to me. I thought, that's weird. And I thought, I'm not going to just bowl up to her and say hello.

I'm on LinkedIn. I fancied being on my pocket. I thought that'd be a bit weird and awkward.

But then one day, she sat next to me, put her hood up, snuggled up, went to sleep. I thought, I'll leave her alone. And then when we stopped, I said hello.

She's like, who are you? And then that was it. I thought, I said, I'm Jim.

Come on my podcast. And she's like, all right then, no worries. And that was it.

So here she is. Thanks for doing that.

RILEY:

It's all good.

JIMMY:

I'm good. I'm safe, don't worry. So tell me about Labour Desk and what you do there then.

RILEY:

So yeah, I'm a contracts manager. And so my job is to basically bring in new clients, manage the accounts, and grow them, and then fill the roles as well. So it's like a 360 role.

But we do anything in construction. So anything from a labourer for a day, or a whole project team for the duration of the project, basically. So we do labourers, all trades, site managers, stuff like that, all over the UK.

JIMMY:

Cool, cool. So it's just the clients. You don't deal with the candidates?

RILEY:

Yeah, I deal with both. So I deal with the client side, and then obviously look after the clients, and make them place orders. And then when they place orders, I speak to candidates and put them on site.

JIMMY:

Wicked, cool. How did you get into this then?

RILEY:

Well, I know everyone that says it, I just fell into it. So I used to work in my previous job, I used to work with Natasha, or I met her through my previous job, who works for the labour desk, and ended up leaving my old job. And she introduced me to her husband, Alex, who owns the company.

And it was just before Christmas, and he was like, well, just try it out. If you don't like it, at least you can get a couple of months wages before Christmas, and then try out something else. And yeah, it all just went really well.

And I just kind of picked it up quite quickly. And then, yeah, it's been like two years now.

JIMMY:

So yeah, you seem to be thriving. Anyway, you seem to be doing all right there.

RILEY:

Yeah, it's going well, it's going well.

JIMMY:

You told me, you told