Investment in skills key to construction industry growth
INVESTMENT in skills is the essential element to ensuring the construction industry keeps on top of its rapid growth, according to an industry expert.
The construction industry is bouncing back and encouragingly, we are beginning to see some signs of a strengthening recovery sweep the region, David Price, business unit director for Wates Construction, Yorkshire, has told TheBusinessDesk.com.
Wates is currently delivering developments including the new Haribo factory in Wakefield and Roydhouse Properties’ Central Square on Wellington Street.
As the pipeline of construction work grows, Price said with flagship schemes such as Land Securities’ expansion of the White Rose Shopping Centre and Rolls Royce’s new factory in Rotherham on the horizon – so too does the need to fine-tune skills of adaptability to ensure the industry can surmount the emerging obstacles and ultimately stay ahead of the curve.
“The most significant challenge of 2014, which will undoubtedly extend to 2015, is a rising demand on resource,” Price said.
“Recent figures from the CIOB point towards the need to fill approximately 182,000 new construction jobs by 2018. Of course this rise in employment is positive, however a recent report commissioned by the Princes Trust and HSBC showed that over a third of businesses are facing a skills crisis – so there is a considerable gap that must be plugged.”
Price said engaging the workforce of tomorrow is a core priority of its strategy to keep up with the rapid growth the industry is currently experiencing.
“An important element of this is our Business Class partnership with Bruntcliffe School in Leeds, facilitated by business-led charity, Business in the Community (BITC), which we are currently extending after a very successful three years,” he said.
“Through this collaboration, we engage with young people to inspire them to explore a career in construction. It is at this grassroots level, alongside our project-based apprenticeship schemes, that we are able to cultivate the industry talent of ten or twenty years’ time.
“Ultimately, investment in skills is the essential element to not only ensuring that industry growth can be managed but that we can continually strive for high standards in quality.
“There is a feeling that we have gone from bust to boom very quickly and overzealous optimism can be hazardous. What is certain however is that the exciting momentum building in the economic recovery has the potential to give us the means, along with a greater breadth of opportunity, to ramp up our investment in talent, both old and new. As an industry, we need to grab this opportunity with both hands because ultimately people are the fundamental lifeblood of this fantastic industry.”
