During the summer Mark Wheeler, Global Chief Operating Officer, delivered a talk to the Chartered Institute of Civil Engineering Surveyors’ (Chartered ICES) commercial conference in London. The hot topic – “The Skills Gap”.
He asked the key questions:
- “Is it real?”
- “How big is it?”
- “And of course – how can we fix it?”
Mark reviewed as much data as possible, and inevitably found a wide range of answers, many of which conflicted with other sources. By reviewing the data overall it is possible to come to some conclusions, and a very worrying scenario. Over the next three years, the demand for skilled construction sector staff will peak beyond the current capacity the industry has for skilled staff, and a during this time, Brexit is likely to reduce the number available in any event.
Lots of questions and even more facts to ponder – here are a few key points:
- Estimates suggest a shortfall of between 400,000 and 600,000 construction related workers in the next 5-10 years.
- Data regarding the industry is fragmented and varies widely – if we don’t know our start point how can we plan to succeed?
- It takes a decade or more to produce professional skilled workers.
- There is no magic wand solution.
For a more in-depth look at the ‘gap’ – what, where, and how, you can read his full article by clicking download at the bottom of this post. The paper provides a summary of his review of the available data, and some of the suggestions of urgent actions that he made for the professional bodies to take, to help the industry use transferable skills from other industries.
Download here