Around the Table: A podcast by Building Relations
This podcast will try and unpick some of the current housing stories taking the industry by storm including the transition to net zero, rising construction costs, skill shortages and new policies and legislation. Across this series, we will be joined by several experts to tackle some of these issues and opportunities for the housebuilding industry.
Around the Table: A podcast by Building Relations
Skill, Baby, Skill: Solving the UK’s Construction Workforce Crisis
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Britain’s ambition to build 1.5 million new homes is under serious threat from a growing skills shortage. In this episode of Around the Table, host Rachel Colgan, of Building Relations PR is joined by William Walsh of Barratt David Wilson Kent and Roger Morton from NHBC to explore how the sector can rebuild its workforce.
Together, they discuss apprenticeships, training hubs, new career pathways, digital skills and the policy interventions needed to attract, train and retain the next generation - turning “build, baby, build” into “skill, baby, skill.”
Music credit: Uppbeat
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Hello and welcome back to Around the Table, the podcast from Building Relations, where we discuss the big issues shaping the property and construction sector. I'm your host today, Rachel Colgan, founding director here at Building Relations PR. And today we're tackling what many describe as the defining challenge for the housing sector, the construction skills crisis. It's no secret that Britain has committed to building 1.5 million new homes. But with construction employment falling and more than 250,000 extra workers needed by 2028, the industry is facing its biggest talent shortage in a generation. Now we're never going to be able to solve all the problems around this in the next half an hour. So today we are asking a simple but crucial question. Do we currently have the workforce needed to build Britain's future? And if not, how do we create it? To help, we have two viewpoints, and I'm very pleased to welcome two brilliant guests to our podcast. William Walsh, managing director of Barrett David Wilson-Kent, leading one of Britain's most active divisions with a strong apprenticeship culture and a commitment to multi-pathway careers. Great to have you with us here today, Will.
SPEAKER_00:Hello.
SPEAKER_01:Also Roger Morton, Director of Business Change NHBC, and a national leader in construction training and upskilling, including NHBC's multi-skill training hubs expansion across the country, which has been across the news in the past few days. Roger, thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks, Rachel.
SPEAKER_01:Roger, let's start with you. Now, the NHBC works closely with builders nationwide and has access to lots of data on workforce trends. What does the latest data tell us about the scale of today's construction skill shortage?
SPEAKER_02:So we know that we've got a triple challenge. We've got quantity, quality, and skills all need to all need to be met, and that 1.5 million homes that you mentioned, and our warning of skill baby skills got to meet that. So the figures really, I think, to settle on is we know that it's going to take 250,000 extra construction workers by 2028 just to meet the current demand. We also know that uh for every 10,000 um new homes that are built, we need 2,500 bricklayers, 2,500 ground workers and plant operators, and 1,000 carpenters. There are hundreds of other trades, but those are the big numbers that we need. So that's why we've got to do something about that, and that's why we're really keen to see young people entering this career so that we can solve the aged population, because that's the other end of the issue, is the population that's already working in this area is very aged, uh, and we need to start now if we want to build a skilled workforce, because we can't do that overnight.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely not. And why is industry finding it so difficult to attract and retain people at both ends of the age group you talk about at entry level and an old age group too?
SPEAKER_02:So I think the first thing to say is that there's no shortage beyond the people considering a career and construction. It's more about how we can help the employers who are largely SMEs who come up against all sorts of barriers. The industry has been male-dominated for a long time. I've mentioned the aging workforce, but we want to encourage people from all sorts of backgrounds to join the house building sector. It's a fantastic career. Uh, and apprenticeships are the way to give people pathways to a really rewarding and well-paid career that can make a real difference.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. It's a brilliant career. I think we can all agree. In the last few days, as many as you will have seen, the NHBC has made lots of exciting announcements, including the national rollout of the£100 million programme to tackle the skill shortage, including 12 new multi-skill apprenticeship training hubs. This is such an amazing programme and has the real potential to make a real impact. Can you tell us a little bit more about this and the rollout and why it's being driven?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so uh the£100 million investment is um our money, we're a non-profit distributing company, so we're investing that money back into the sector. The 12 new multi-skills training hubs across the UK, and those will support uh to 3,000 apprentices a year, and they'll produce skilled, site-ready tradespeople in an immersive real site training environment from day one. So, what that means is is that we uh try and paint a picture really for you. We have our uh training hubs on on site. They are on a house building site, they're two-thirds the size of a football pitch. We're training their um outdoor trades, so brick laying, groundworks, and site carpentry to begin with, all training together. We have uh an outdoor training area. There is a there is a canopy over the top to keep them dry on a wet day, but if it's a December day and you're laying bricks and it's cold, guess what? You get cold because that's realism, and it's full personal protective equipment, it's a full working day from 8 till 4:30, and and it's an immersive environment. So that means that we can really um uh do things that that are different to traditional training providers, and that means that um within 14 to 18 months, what would normally take two to three years, we can train a level two apprentice, um, and we've got some very good results, very good retention rates. So we can really we can really do things at a scale that hasn't been done before.
SPEAKER_01:All right, that's fantastic, a real opportunity there, and such a great opportunity for young people today. I really love this. Um now let's move over to you, Will. Hello. I know from our regular chats that apprenticeships and skills is a subject that's close to your heart. So, Barrett, a major national house builder with a strong local presence in Kent. From your perspective, Will, and particularly within your Kent division, what skills shortages are you seeing day to day on sites and across your teams? How is it affecting you?
SPEAKER_03:What I would say, Rach, is it's very local local specific. So Kent is a big patch and obviously the country the UK is a is is a big area of land. So I think what you have is a l localized shortage of trades and it's very specific on the cyclical notion of construction. So if you have a large project, say in east of Kent, that will attract a real centralized piece of labour into into that site for a period specific period of time, then that site then moves on. So I think the challenge we have is the locations, obviously our sites operating over the patch and having a real change as we move our sites around the county of attracting labour to those individual sites.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, totally understand. And for you, uh it's not just about trade apprentices, is it? You know, you've spoken before about the need for technical roles and digital roles, office-based roles. You know, there's there's lots of opportunities here for for people looking to get into construction.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, so we we focus on trade apprentices and bricklayers, carpenters and ground workers, but we absolutely have a focus as well on the back office apprenticeships. So we have construction, site management apprenticeships, degree apprenticeships that we partner up with Sheffield Adam University. So we offer that pathway straight throughout education through a five-year degree apprenticeship program in site management, technical surveying and land as well. We've recently recruited into the into land apprentices. Started that two years ago, and that's proven to be really successful. So we employ as a as a division about 220 people, probably 20 of them. So nearly 10% are apprentice or degree level individuals who have come into the industry obviously green, and we are training up on the ground either in in trade form or or in the back office.
SPEAKER_01:Fantastic. It is a national conversation too. There's lots of issues at a local level, but you know, why does the national conversation on skills need to fraud and what do we need to do more there?
SPEAKER_03:Nationally, there's obviously a conversation. It comes, you know, you you can go all the way from government at national level, but uh, you know, I do come back to locally and I uh I always always come back to our responsibility as you know as as the biggest national developer and you know the the role we're going to play in in in attracting skills into the industry. Obviously, we're very much relying on government funding, relying on government incentives and and government's position on vocational subjects for education. But the reality is locally on the ground, we have to do something. And what we're doing at the moment is trying to attract that apprentice level in as a start-up career. But what I do as well is I do a lot of link ups with trades. So we've you know, we have local trades, we have trades who only operate in the Kent area of the south east. So what we do is part of my self-contractor engagement is really understand what they're doing as well and how we can partner up and attract skills together into the industry. And you know, we are then we put our trade apprentices in brick layers of carpenters and ground workers who we work with on a day-to-day basis, and lots of SME subcontractors doing amazing work locally in terms of attracting those skills.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so the uh subcontractors are just as important as the house builders.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that and ultimately once an apprentice comes into the business, you have to have the support network and the mentoring, be it with us as a developer ball so absolutely with the subcontractor basically trade friendship. You know, they're they're green out out of college, out of school, they've never worked before, they need that, you know, that real support, not handholding necessarily, but they need that real support network to nurture them into the industry and make sure they've re well, it's all about retainment. You know, Roger will talk about that in terms of the retainment is absolutely key.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely. Given everything we've just talked about, how serious is the risk that we simply won't meet housing targets without a major workforce expansion?
SPEAKER_02:I think it's uh let's not underplay the challenge, Rachel. It's gonna be a pretty bold target, the government's um ambition, and uh without a bigger skilled workforce, uh the targets you know will be difficult, difficult to reach. So, you know, there is outdated perceptions in this area. People have some some views of construction that may not, you know, be accurate. I mean, I often ask the question of people that are not in the construction industry, how much does the average bricklayer earn in a year? Uh and they're surprised when you've done this£50,000.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, amazing.
SPEAKER_02:So, you know, with an apprenticeship, you know, get an NHBC apprenticeship, you can do it uh, you know, efficiently, effectively, in real-sight conditions, and then start earning money. That's great for the apprentice, it's great for the employer because uh they're working in teams together, and we're really supercharging that by saying, let's let's get those people, those young people that want to come in. Because if we're gonna hit these targets, we've got to do something different. And that's why you know we're supercharging that. We're we're approaching from a different perspective so that we can really do our bit to assist uh in those government targets.
SPEAKER_01:Are young people wanting to get into apprenticeships? Is this what you know is there is there a desire out there? Because you see lots of reports about them not wanting to, you know, get cold in the winter or work hard. Are you do you see the desire there from young people to do apprenticeships?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely we do, and I'd be interested on William's thoughts on this as well, because we're actually seeing the desire from them. The challenge is, of course, we we don't employ the apprentices at NHBC, we provide the training. So we need employers to do that, and we need employers to be confident that there's work to take on an apprentice on for 18 months. So it's that commitment that an employer needs to give. Uh, and that's where the interface with William and his team is is so important.
SPEAKER_01:And well, do you see you see the same?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and I mean uh it's it's actually really pleasing to hear Roger say that you don't think there's a shortage of young people wanting to get into apprenticeships. I I do agree. I think people want a different route to university, partly because it costs too much money for young people to get to university and they come out saddle with debt. So I think the apprentice route is absolutely a an area that people are looking into far, far more than they were 10, 15 years ago. I think on the young people wanting to get into construction, I do think we've got a challenge in terms of that attraction piece from school level, choices level, kind of age twelve plus really, because my engagement with local schools is often that people have reconsider the route into construction. Construction is a fallback position if they don't do well academically. And that's ultimately where we need to challenge ourselves on how we get into the schools earlier and educate young people and their parents about the absolute breadth of careers available in construction, which isn't just laying a brick on the ground, it's becoming a quantity surveyor and going even further, getting into the AI and the BIM and all the you know 3D modelling that kind of the more sexy stuff around construction that hopefully will attract a new generation in.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. We did um a round table uh a few months back and definitely the the feedback was that we need to start educating or telling people about the exciting career of construction earlier, so even earlier than at secondary school, but actually, you know, as early as primary school to kind of really spark that interest and see it as a real career path.
SPEAKER_02:We can help there as well with our hubs because although um the main priorities for apprentices, about 80% of our our time at the hubs is is designated for those apprenticeships, but actually at least 20% for the other stuff. And that's exactly what Will's talking about. How do we engage with schools? It's difficult to get work experience on a site because of the health and safety considerations. Well, we've got a we've got a facility that's very similar to site conditions where we can control the environment and we can encourage school kids to come in and see what a career in construction might be, not just the trades we're offering, but all those other options that Will mentioned as well. So we we can they're purposely designed to build the next generation of people's coming through. Excellent.
SPEAKER_03:And I think it's that, you know, the perception of the cold, wet, difficult conditions of construction, I do think it's a barrier we've still got to break. I think there are people wanting to get into it, but there's still not enough. You know, I think what is it, 35% of the workforce are over the age of 50. And that's tens of thousands of people on an annual basis that are entering retirement age. I I do I I worry on the ground I see a real shortage of bricklayers, a real short sort of shortage of roofers as well, like superstructure trades and you know, like just obviously modern methods of construction are coming to it, which is going to help things and we're gonna need a we're gonna need less quantity in the workforce, but I do think there's a lot of work to do around getting people excited about laying a brick and working on a roof and ultimately working in the increment weather in the street between the months of October and May, which is the reality of work in the UK.
SPEAKER_01:Sounds like a good PR job for us there.
SPEAKER_03:There you go.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so Will tell me a little bit more about what Barrett's doing. I know you've talked about the various opportunities. Your Kent Division has achieved strong apprentice engagement, which is great. Um I know it's something that you personally push for within the division again, which is fantastic. What's the real keys to success and what others, what might others learn from your approach?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think I mentioned earlier around the mentoring of individuals. You need to have that support network, you need to have a very um regimented and structured touch points with with those individuals as they enter the enter their careers. So I think that's a really, really important one. You have to have engagement from the functional leads. So whether it's construction, technical, commercial, they have to be engaged in wanting ultimately to bring people through. Uh the absolute key. And we we drive that heavily, we drive succession heavily throughout the business, and that includes trade apprentices. I mean what success looks like varies depending on who you talk to, because we've historically brought our trade apprentices in and actually considered maybe if they hadn't become a site manager at the end of it or an assistant site manager, that's a failure if they've we've lost into the industry. But my position my position on that is it's not a failure, it's just a different route that we take, and we have absolutely got responsibility to grow our bricklaying workforce. So actually them going to become a bricklayer or cop through the end of the trade apprentices they've had with us is absolute success. And we actually should be encouraging and doing more as much as possible. So when I'm asked on an annual basis, how many apprentices do you want? I go, How many am I allowed? Because I want as many as possible. And we'll get later on to what's holding us back. Reality is funding people, you know, because you need a support network, but I want as many as possible because that you know that ultimately for us that's our responsibility. And I'm planning on being industry twenty, twenty-five years in the future, and I don't wanna I don't want this skills problem to manifest any further than it already has.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's so commendable and so important that that you think like that, and I really hope others think in the same way too. Roger, uh NHBC, going back to kind of the multi-skills hubs here a little bit. Tell us a little bit more about exactly what you teach in these hubs and how does that work with with say Barrett, you know, house builders. How how do the two connect and how how is it a seamless process? Because you do the skills, the training, do they then have the jobs to go on to? Tell us a bit more.
SPEAKER_02:So it's a virtuous circle. So you know, Barrett employ the supply chain that will employ the apprentices. So uh it might be that Will will invite me to come and speak to his supply chain. Um, and we can then take apprentices on a real focus journey. So I've already mentioned the real life conditions, so people are site ready. But the other great advantage we have, and you alluded to the data we have, is we know where the major claims are in the industry, and we focus our apprenticeships around house building. So students are learning uh about bricklaying in house building, how to label it except volume, that uh companies like Barrett are going to employ them on their site. So we use our claims data, we've we bring that realism in a way that other training providers can't because they don't have that data. Um, um, and we really value the importance of that engagement. And Will's mentioned mentoring, we have staff that get to know them because the students are there for weeks at a time, so it gets them really well, and then we have mentors back in their employers, and that that improves that virtuous circle. So we then get students going out as a result of that realistic training onto house building sites, and that's how we can then uh ensure that the very high pass rates we've got and the and the great retention rates that we get, around 85% of people passing our apprenticeships are actually going on to apply their trade on site. That's the the unique piece that we have. You put all those parts together, and you then have a very powerful message that then, you know, Barrett are getting a great product in terms of the apprentices. So some examples I can think of. I think our first uh female apprentice to get a distinction at one of our small hubs was age 19. We've got career changers coming in, people have done A-levels or or decided not to go to university and decided this is the route for them. So it's it's a great opportunity for people from different backgrounds. And and I think we'll would agree if we can hone them in on the house building skills, which which we uniquely we can as from our position in the market, that that helps with that circle.
unknown:Right, right, right, right.
SPEAKER_01:I love that, the virtuous circle. It's brilliant. You've touched on something there, which I wanted to ask you. You talk about and more diversity when it comes to apprenticeships. I think apprenticeships used to be young boys or young men. Are you seeing a lot more diverse roles coming? That's fantastic. You mentioned about the the first female 19-year-old. Uh tell us more.
SPEAKER_02:She's not unusual in that, you know, we've got I can think of taking another another apprentice that completed her apprenticeship in 15 months. I saw her being offered a job on the site by a Brickworks company. Fantastic to see her getting on really well. We are also getting uh career changes. Uh, so we've had ex-military come and join our apprenticeship schemes. I met the other day uh somebody she's been a chef for eight years and was absolutely loving the groundworks apprenticeship that she's involved with. So we've got a real wide mix with broad church, and we welcome that because that's the future. We're missing a huge amount of talent if we concentrate on what the construction industry has traditionally focused on. And we we want to get that message out there as early as we can into schools, uh into people that have perhaps decided on a particular career but want to change and bring them into a really rewarding career that they can either stay in that trade for many years and do well, or they might. transition into uh working for companies like like Wills or or or in other other areas of construction.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there are just so many options out there and that's so encouraging. Well coming over to now, you know, the construction sector is competing with every other industry for young talent. How can the sector reposition itself to appeal to young people, do you think?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, just touching on Roger's point, I completely agree on the diversity point. Like looking out of industry, it's not just about young people. It's about get what could, you know, who can we hone in on out of industry? And we've done a lot of work with the military as well, X Armed Forces and been massively successful in terms of our armed forces programme, more into site management than any trade, but it's absolutely an area that we are looking into, again, not just on site, but across the back office, you know, how can we tap into that diverse pool of of of labour outside of the construct the traditional construction routes? And it's somewhere we have to go to because the reality is the back office staff aren't coming through and you're picking from the same pool of CVs if you've got a job vacancy. So you know in technical we're going to more architectural and practice backgrounds trying to find our technical coordinators and in in commercial where can we get from main contractor or can we even go out of industry from a sales perspective because we've got to sell our homes we go to fast pace retail and you know is is someone good at selling you know we've we picked up someone working in our sales team from B and Q a few weeks ago and they're now selling houses on the ground. So it's absolutely an area we've got to look at not just in terms of that entry level trade position but across across the industry. And in terms of making it more attractive next generation, I think we touched upon earlier on about I think we've got to make it a little bit sexier in terms of like that, you know, when you're going into schools like it's you know it's not just the nitty-gritty the mucky stuff. It's absolutely the back office of the innovation, the the ideas, the design and ultimately then it does come down to salaries as well. You know the construction industry offers very, very strong salaries very strong entry level salaries and a very very fast route to earn more money quickly a lot quicker than other industries. And I think we need to tap into that a little bit more and probably be a little bit more open about what that looks like. You know Roger made reference to bricklayer earning 50,000 a year probably within a couple of years of leaving college. You know that's that's the reality of working with Constant surveyors is there is a shortage they can leave school, do our degree apprenticeship program, be qualified within five years and be earning upwards of 70-75 thousand so you're talking you know big money for young people who aren't settled that that debt. So I think you know there's there's a responsibility on that and I think the breadth of opportunity, you know, we've got to somehow diversify the message around what a construction career looks like. And I don't think we've got that right. So it's probably something you can have with Rach in terms of how we do that.
SPEAKER_01:I wonder again we as I said we've done roundtables on this and and some of the suggestions are we need to almost promote this as a brilliant career path to parents because parents are the ones that are advising their children and they need to see this as a brilliant career opportunity for their for their children too. Is that something that you that you see?
SPEAKER_03:100% I mean I you know it frustrates me that it's seen you know the the vocational the practical skills in education. I see I've got three children in education now, albeit relatively early stage of education, but it is absolutely the perception on academia over practical skills. I can see it from kind of the ages of eight and nine and I think that fallback position in terms of people therefore fall into a trade or fall into practical skill job because they're not academic needs to be absolutely reassessed. That's go you know that goes back to government and policies on education probably harks back to the days of the you know the Blair government and the push for everyone to get to university and I still think we've got the the fallout of that in terms of our education system that people are absolutely pushed down the academic route rightly so but then the fallback position of those practical skills isn't praised and celebrated enough.
SPEAKER_01:Definitely Roger I see you nodding your head there is that something you agree with as well I I do completely agree.
SPEAKER_02:We it's a collaborative effort we we definitely need to get through to parents I I order one parents open days at our our hut so they can come and see what it's like and that collaboration is quite complex in our sector if we've got the the SMEs you know the supply chain partners that will work with us as training provider we need government industry everyone pull together and and for that message to get through I I there was a recent announcement about um apprentices from the government disappointed not to see construction on the list with AI hospitality and engineering but absolutely and we want to collaborate with government we can only do this together. It's a national effort can't do it alone and and we've all got to lean into it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah as a as a as a mother of three as well it's definitely a career that I would definitely encourage my children to get into two girls and a boy and um it's definitely something that I think would be a great career opportunity. So we shall all try.
SPEAKER_03:On the diversity point because I think that's it's great to hear Roger mention that you know the the the amount of females coming in at apprentice level and I've seen that as well in terms of trade apprentices which has been great in the last two to three years especially I think that antiquated view of what construction looks like and who is in construction is starting to change but it still needs a lot of work. I still think you know the the the middle aged white man you know perception of construction is there and it is reality as well. It's not just you know it's not it's not not true. It is we you know it's a very male dominated industry. It's it's all starting to turn but it's how we tap into again the schools and the education system to really make people understand that it is going to change and we ultimately need them to come on come on that journey with us and and enter our industry for the future.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah it's changing but there's still a lot to be done isn't there? Roger you talked there about the government and what government action is urgently required to expand the construction workforce.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah we we need I I described it as as priming the pump we need to support the uh the small medium enterprises those the backbone of the construction industry and and incentivize them to take on quality stuff and the best quality is through an apprenticeship. So we need that support from government that was that was one wish I would have it would be to support those SMEs on that journey because they're the ones where the rubber hits the road and that's where the biggest impact is both for them as employers but also with them giving those people the chance to start their career that will go on. If you talk to a sort of supply chain conference I've been to for with Will and his colleagues from around the country the business owners you speak to there are also always asked the question who did an apprenticeship and probably about half of them have done. So that's the backbone that's where we need to start and that's where I'd ask government for support fantastic.
SPEAKER_01:That's what we need to do is really promote those careers, those successful people who've had a brilliant career which started out as an apprentice I think that would be a great opportunity. How can the construction skills mission board and the 625 million skills investment be used most effectively Roger?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah there's a great opportunity with the construction skills mission board we we've recently had them come to visit one of our hubs which was fantastic and so the the house building elements of that so that was a great eye opener for them and they could see what can be done. I think it's about what we can do at scale we can supercharge this if we're going to make a difference if that mission skills board is going to make a difference needs to do something that's going to be impactful. Will mentioned Bruke Rufus and the outer leaks being aid that's where we know the skills gaps are that's where we at NHBC know that there are there are claims and that's where we want to improve the quality so that would be my message to them if that was my message to them when they came to visit the other week was let's think about how you can encourage people, incentivise people. If we're going to make a difference we need to do it at scale and soon.
SPEAKER_03:Can I just ask a question on that I'm interested because there's that the money available and it's great, you know, the the Skills Mission Board do we think there's enough skilled trainers at scale to actually impact that workforce across the country because I I I find you know that the absolute quality of the training is is the key isn't it to get the people trained up and ultimately site ready.
SPEAKER_02:It's a great question Will perhaps I can feel that erasure because we we noticed that you know we've got to it's great having people want to come to the hubs it's great having the employers want to employ them but we need good quality people to train. So we're really focused on the sector looking at the industry people that that want to create change and give back and we've got a good record of of taking people on who are either coming from the tools and want to give back or perhaps have been employed within NHBC and R other roles such as building inspectors that know the industry and that's really important to us. So that realism in training that difference that uniqueness we have if we can take people that have been on site and know what is required on site are current that can make a big difference and and the benefit of that as well is it it means that we can do it's all our our mission here is to to to deliver training that's additional to that which is provided by the the network of FE colleges across country. So if we can bring people from the tools from site this all helps build the numbers and colors the scores at the OK so back to you Will from a house builder's perspective what barriers do you face when trying to scale up training?
SPEAKER_01:What challenges do you face?
SPEAKER_03:Well I think for us it is looking inward is the fast pace nature we operate. So I think we are a relentless business in terms of the speed we operate in the volume or a volume builder you know we aren't want to we want to scale up to 22,000 homes in the medium term and I think it's taking a breath and having time to invest in the grassroots entry level positions which we you know we have we ultimately have a a really really good skills team in place at group level and we do do that. But I think on the ground that fast paced environment divisionally you need to make sure the support network is there in all thirty divisions across the country and have that consistency which is very very challenging because every every business in a different cycle and every business has probably different positions and time for their apprentices that are coming into the into the business. So I think that's a that is a barrier that consistency when you operate divisionally across the country and ultimately it comes down to head count and carry cost.
SPEAKER_01:And why is building a skilled workforce absolutely fundamental to meeting the nation's housing needs we want to build more why is it so important?
SPEAKER_02:I I think uh it's a it's the skill we will need no matter what methods of construction we we can come up with and and and try and find other ways of of supporting those those huge figures that we want to try and get to 1.5 million homes we're still going to need skilled tradespeople. Remember that you know house building is is an outdoor activity on the land it's not something that's done in the factory. We need people for the skills who are adaptable, innovative and the problem solvers and and that will always be there in house building so it's really important that we don't lose sight of that as we become you know more digitally focused and that has its place absolutely in our sector. But we'll never get away from the fact that we need skill tradespeople actually doing the job.
SPEAKER_01:And thinking about net zero building for the future that that's another sector that needs a whole load of skills and new talent is that something that you're you're working on?
SPEAKER_02:We're focusing on those those trades I mentioned we call our training centres trade agnostic we'll we'll react to what the industry would like. So we deliver what the industry tells us they need. So a good example being timber frame construction we are we're working on that at the moment because the industry has told us that that's what they need and we we're looking at future homes how they're going to be set up when the skills have been needed. I I don't know Will from your perspective whether you're focusing on that area right now.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah hugely so we've got a team solely focused on innovation and looking at the future home standards and you know we've heard of the Z House, the Z House II we've got in terms of the you know the the carbon zero homes so it's a huge area of focus for us because not only do we want to lead the way and we do lead the way on the sustainability piece in terms of the major builders we want to make sure we do it in the most cost effective manner with the highest quality we can possibly do. So we've got massive massive focus on that. Obviously it's been delayed in terms of the the future homes coming through in terms of building rigs but absolutely we're ready as soon as that that comes into play we've we've got we've got a team and we've got the technologies in place to to hit what's required from a building perspective. But the skills piece that's going to take time to roll out to the workforce as and when there are building regulation changes you have that transition period of six twelve months is a challenge once people get get used to using new ways of working. So the sooner we invest and the sooner we skill and train the better it's gonna be for building all these new homes that we need to absolutely and that's actually a point in terms of that you know entry level you know the the um attractiveness of the construction industry obviously technologies will evolve and technology will have a massive part to play in our in our industry and in our products we produce but the reality is the product we have is tangible is that it is AI proof to an extent in terms of that future trade and future career. You know you you will always need a bricklayer on the ground you will always need someone to physically lay roof tiles. It is a massive future proof career compared to others that you potentially get into.
SPEAKER_01:Definitely okay any closing remarks from you Roger?
SPEAKER_02:Just to say we've all got to work together collaboration's the key here skill baby skills the way forward if we're gonna build baby build and um that's why we're we're doing what we're doing.
SPEAKER_01:If you could just each pick one thing government could do tomorrow to help end the skills crisis, one thing, what would it be?
SPEAKER_03:I said the government can only do so much. They can they can you know they can they can introduce six hundred million pound fund in terms of future careers. I absolutely think there's a responsibility of certainly national developers to take the lead on that. I don't believe we can be relying on government for anything in reality and that's you know making sure we sell our homes and making sure we build our homes so yes the government can absolutely support in the background in terms of policymaking but I believe on the ground we have to do it locally and we have to do it locally and partner up with our SMEs partner up with our you know on a national level with the NHBC and lead the way rather than relying on something else or the government to come in and help us. I think we've got to do it on our own.
SPEAKER_01:That's fantastic.
SPEAKER_02:I I really love that answer definitely and Roger For me it's reassure those SMEs the employers of apprentices and and and those that are not apprentices reassure them incentivise them to get that growth going.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah and there is something around the C ATB levy and making sure it's easier for SMEs to step into I know the complexities I speak to them on the ground about the complexities of actually getting any funding for their trading and it it's just too complicated. They need to make it a simpler process.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah absolutely I think we can understand this is a big subject and probably not one we're going to cover in a half an hour podcast but we've covered so much so thank you both so much for your contributions. Will Roger thank you both for such a great chat on such an important topic. If Britain is serious about hitting its housing targets then solving the skills crisis isn't optional. It's essential. It's so encouraging to hear the amazing work underway from both the NHBC and Barrett and of course so many others in the industry to build the workforce of the future. To our listeners thank you for joining us I hope you found it as interesting as I have if you enjoyed the episode please subscribe follow and hear all about our future discussions here at Around the table. I'm Rachel Colgan and we'll see you next time. Thank you