The United Kingdom (UK) is currently facing a severe shortage of construction workers, particularly bricklayers, roofers, and carpenters. This shortage is leading to significant delays for homeowners seeking building services.
According to a national construction audit by Fix Radio, an alarming 415,000 people have had to wait over a year to secure a builder since 2021. The shortage extends across various trades, with 301,000 households waiting a year for plumbers and heating engineers, 294,000 for roofers, and 274,000 for carpenters.
As reported by Daily Mail UK, the average wait for a bricklayer over the past three years has exceeded three months, while landscapers, painters, and decorators have kept customers waiting for two and a half months.
Industry experts emphasize the severe impact of this skills deficit on major projects, including delays in completing the Co-op Live venue in Manchester. An additional 225,000 skilled workers will be required to meet the growing demand by 2027. The economic consequences are significant, with projections indicating that the UK could miss out on £98 billion of growth by 2030 due to the skills gap.
The ageing workforce exacerbates the issue, with one-fifth of construction workers now over 50 years old and a third planning to retire by 2030. The Construction Industry Training Board’s Construction Skills Network estimates that nearly one million tradespeople will retire in the next decade.
While migrant labour has helped alleviate shortages to some extent, there is an urgent need to train more British workers. Last year, bricklayers, plasterers, roofers, and carpenters were added to the Home Office’s shortage occupation list to address the deficit.
UK government initiatives aim to tackle the problem, including measures to discourage non-vocational university degrees and funding 100,000 apprenticeships. The Labour and Conservative parties have prioritized construction in their General Election campaigns, with Labour proposing new towns and Rishi Sunak pledging to build hundreds of thousands of homes in major cities.
Clive Holland of Fix Radio highlighted the need for more builders, cautioning that addressing the housing crisis without tackling the skills deficit could lead to serious consequences. A Fix Radio survey also revealed that two-thirds of Britons felt insufficiently encouraged to pursue trades in school, with 18% of parents dissuading their children from entering the construction industry due to perceived low earnings.
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