Tag Archives: skills

New: SkillsPlanner Intelligence Briefing 2

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To help keep SkillsPlanner stakeholders updated on key developments relating to construction skills in both industry and government, Plymouth University’s SERIO applied research unit is producing a series of intelligence briefings. The first was published in February (post); the second (PDF) has just been finalised and is now available in our media section.

Written in clear, non-academic English, these briefings are and intended to inform and engage our audiences with the ongoing R&D project. The latest looks at four main topics (some also discussed on the SkillsPlanner blog):

  • Apprenticeship Levy: In April 2016 the government released some additional detail concerning the specifics of the Apprenticeship Levy. This includes a deadline for spending funds raised through the levy (18 months) and the ability of ‘connected companies’ to pool their funds. However a number of details are yet to be released including: precise rules around how and with whom employers can pool funds; and how non-levy paying businesses, which make up the vast majority of construction employers will be funded to deliver Apprenticeships. Based on these emerging details, it is thought that the Apprenticeship fund could be a catalyst for increased levels of collaboration and partnership working between connected companies.
  • Post-16 Skills PlanFurther Education Provision: The London (Central) Area Based Review commenced in January 2016. The Review will examine the Further Education (FE) sector in the area and consider options for rationalising the curriculum and developing greater specialisation, as well as the prospects for any mergers, closures or collaboration. Similarly to the Apprenticeship Levy, the Review could encourage further partnership working and interact with other developments (such as the Sainsbury Review – post) to help simplify the technical and professional training market.
  • Transport Infrastructure Skills Strategy: The new Transport Infrastructure Skills Strategy (published January 2016) sets an ambition for at least 20% of new entrants to engineering and technical apprenticeships in the transport sector to be women by 2020. More widely, a new Strategic Transport Apprenticeship Taskforce will be set up to address skills challenges within the sector.
  • Government Construction Strategy: The Government Construction Strategy 2016-20 (see also this post) sets out how the government plans to develop its capability as an ‘exemplary’ construction client. One of the Strategy’s key aims is to develop collaborative procurement techniques to build skills capacity, including the delivery of 20,000 apprenticeships by 2020.

The reshuffle dust settles …

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GCS 2016-20

As the UK political establishment settles down after the EU Referendum (post) and the resulting spate of resignations and changes of office, the UK construction sector is now beginning to identify the new figures who will be leading key initiatives on areas such as housebuilding and planning, construction strategy, and skills.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s Cabinet reshuffle saw a plethora of new appointments, and as the various Cabinet ministers have begun to settle into their portfolios and some tasks have been moved between ministries, various junior minister posts have also been finalised.

Succeeding Nick Boles, Harlow MP Robert Halfon is the new apprentices and skills minister, appointed by education secretary Justine Greening – the skills brief having been moved from the former Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS, now the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, BEIS). Halfon appears well-suited to his new brief. He employed the first parliamentary apprentice, and says he has “led from the front in championing apprenticeships.” We assume he will be taking responsibility for pushing forward the Government’s Post-16 Skills Plan, its response to the Sainsbury Review, published last week (post).

From our point of view on the SkillsPlanner project, another key appointment has been Croydon MP Gavin Barwell, appointed the new housing and planning minister in the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG). Barwell is also minister for London; our two-year SkillsPlanner project is strongly focused on London and the southeast, and we expect Barwell will be working closely with London Mayor Sadiq Khan (post).

And, Cabinet Office minister Ben Gummer, MP for Ipswich, will oversee the government’s own construction strategy (post) and programme, lead on its procurement policy, and also look at digital transformation of government. The latter particularly interests SkillsPlanner; data, much of it provided by government or government-funded organisations and projects, is at the core of our open linked data platform, and the wider construction industry is also engaged in a deeper digital shift outlined in the February 2015 Digital Built Britain strategy (post).

Update (1 August 2016) – At BEIS, Jesse Norman MP, minister for industry and energy, will be responsible for industrial policy covering infrastructure and construction.

Government skills plan promises reform – and data!

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Post-16 Skills Plan

Skills minister Nick Boles has said the UK government accepts and will implement every one of Lord Sainsbury’s 34 recommendations on technical education reform ‘unequivocally where possible within current budget constraints’ (reports Infrastructure Intelligence today).

The government’s Post-16 Skills Plan has been published simultaneously with, and as a response to, the Sainsbury independent panel report on technical and professional education, having been delayed due to the EU referendum (both are available online here). Sainsbury says the UK’s current system of technical education is overly complex and fails to deliver the skills most needed – as a result, the UK lags behind countries including the US, Germany and France in productivity per person.

Sainsbury’s recommendations include setting up distinct and coherent technical education routes for young people, with two modes of learning: employment-based, typically via an apprenticeship; and a college-based option. Government will build this new technical education route, simplifying the system by establishing a common framework of 15 technical education routes – including one for construction – encompassing all occupation types. Currently there are over 13,000 different qualifications available for 16-18 year-olds. Sainsbury also calls for a common initial core of maths and English for all technical qualifications before specialisation.

The report has been welcomed by EngineeringUK chief executive Paul Jackson, who said:

“It’s vital for the future health of the UK economy that young people in sufficient numbers develop the engineering skills that employers need. And it’s equally vital that the routes to developing these skills are student-centred, offering every young person the best possible opportunity to thrive in their chosen industry. …

“Putting employers front and centre of the development of the routes and providing more structured work placements as part of a technical education programme will have a positive impact on the work-readiness of those entering employment, with new recruits and employer both reaping the benefits. Government’s Post 16 Skills Plan is reassuring and has now to be backed with the practical and financial support their implementation will require.”

The Post-16 Skills Plan – some details

The Post-16 Skills Plan shows that construction – currently employing over 1.6 million people – is among the most critical routes to employment, second only to ‘business and administrative’ (2.2m), and currently ahead of ‘engineering and manufacturing’ (1.3m). The Plan will create high-quality, two-year, college-based programmes at the start of each route, suitable for 16–18 year-olds, but which can also be accessed by adults (students aged 19 and over).

New specialist training providers will also be introduced. The provision of university technical colleges (UTCs) will be expanded, and, where industries of national economic or strategic importance are facing particular challenges in recruitment, new National Colleges will be created. These will lead the design and delivery of technical skills training in five key sectors: nuclear, digital skills, high-speed rail, onshore oil and gas, and the creative and cultural industries.

Farmer Review

Rebecca Lovelace of EthosVO in conversation at June 2016 Westminster launch of BuildForce.Importantly, the Skills Plan also commits (sections 7.4 and 7.5) to “taking action in response to the review we have commissioned from the Construction Leadership Council and Mark Farmer (the Farmer Review) of the functioning of the labour market, including skills provision, in the construction sector.” The government will also review the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB), seeking to boost domestic construction skills and drive up productivity in the construction sector. We are pleased to read this – Mark Farmer has taken a keen interest in EthosVO’s SkillsPlanner and in related initiatives such as BuildForce, launched at the Houses of Parliament on 29 June.

More open data (hurray!)

And, of particular interest to SkillsPlanner and its development of an online skills platform driven by Open Linked Data (if you’re not sure what this is, watch Sir Nigel Shadbolt’s explanation) there is also a commitment to releasing more data. Chapter 6 of the Skills Plan makes “Information and data” the first of its key enabling factors. It aims to guide people through the system and make informed choices about what to study by:

“… making more information available about what students go on to do and how much they earn after taking particular routes or apprenticeships, and how the performance of colleges and other training providers influences students’ performance in working life. This information needs to be easy to access and understand so that people can use it to compare different education and career options and make confident and informed choices.

“… For the first time, we are using information held by the Department for Education; the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; the Department for Work and Pensions; and HM Revenue and Customs to get a better understanding of how young people move through education and into work, and from autumn 2016 we will be making more of this information publicly available….”

Brexit vote hits construction skills

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CM screengrab

Early in the morning of Friday 24 June 2016, the UK construction skills crisis potentially got a whole lot worse.

Once it was announced that the UK had voted to leave the European Union, construction bosses quickly began to wonder about the industry’s reliance on workers from across the English Channel. And, later, as the stock market plummeted – with homebuilders’ and contractors’ shares among the hardest hit – and as the value of sterling dropped to a 31-year low, the challenges facing construction grew even greater.

Of course, to some extent, the existing problems were of our own making. For years, the UK construction industry has failed to recruit and retain sufficient home-grown employees to staff its projects.

Why would people want to join an industry that has for decades been recognised as overly-complex, fragmented and price-fixated in its procurement approaches, adversarial in its supply chain relations, wasteful in its project execution, conservative in its adoption of new technologies, and short-termist and reactive in its approach to human skills development and R&D? (post). That short-termist approach to skills is evident in construction’s failure to retain older workers (Catch them when they’re older), its lack of diversity, and its failure to address fundamental issues that result in the industry being unattractive as a career option (To change the image, first change construction).

pre-referendum survey finding tweeted by ConstructionUKThe Brexit vote makes the skills issue even more challenging. Even before the referendum, many warned that a ‘Leave’ vote might hit construction particularly hard.

Construction industry leaders are now seeking greater collaboration between government and industry to address the skills crisis. For example…

  • the Federation of Master Builders CEO Brian Berry warned that “wrong moves by the Government could result in the skills crisis becoming a skills catastrophe” (reported in Training Journal)
  • Infrastructure Intelligence reported the thoughts of Arcadis consultancy boss, Alan Brookes, who said:

“Construction markets are likely to become more volatile in the short term and we need to consider a joined-up approach to sustaining the capacity and capability of the industry. … One of the big questions we now face is: how can we ensure we have enough people with the right skills to build the houses, roads and rail lines of the future? In the future, European labour may no longer be the safety-valve it has been, so we must plan to use the workforce differently. Using more offsite components and investing in skills and the management of projects will now prove absolutely vital.”

  • The same article also quoted EY’s Malcolm Bairstow:

“A significant proportion of the UK’s builders and construction labour is sourced from Europe and there will be uncertainty over what happens next. If we start to see a movement of these workers out of the UK, this would inevitably cause a slow-down in construction and house-building which could also have a significant impact on development across the country.”

  • And in Construction Manager today, the National Federation of Builders CEO Richard Beresford says: “The lack of skills for the pipeline of work we have is the defining structural issue for the industry. … We need to rethink how we draw people to construction and the breadth of opportunity available.”

At least we have been aware of the skills gap for some years and Government and industry have started to take steps to improve the industry, to foster recruitment and training, and to be more strategic in its pipeline planning. SkillsPlanner is therefore now more important than ever in helping UK construction anticipate future construction skills demand and ensuring there is sufficient supply of well-trained workers to meet that demand.

Government recognises skills planning needs

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GCS 2016-20

It was with some trepidation that we looked at the latest UK Government Construction Strategy 2016-20, released last week (available here). The previous strategy, Construction 2025 (published in July 2013) and the wider-ranging Digital Built Britain strategy (February 2015 – read our July 2015 blog post: Building a better built environment industry) were both produced under the coalition government, but the current administration has reduced some elements of government engagement with the construction sector – the Construction Leadership Council was pared back, and the post of Government Chief Construction Advisor was discontinued. Would the Government, collectively construction’s biggest single client, be reining back its industry ambitions?

Data and skills

The initial signs, however, are encouraging. The direction of travel remains broadly the same, with heightened commitment to “digital and data capability,” and to improving the sector’s skills and resilience. In the ministerial forward, Lord Bridges says:

“we need to improve skills, both within government and the construction sector overall. Our strategy aims to improve government’s capacity and capability as a client, while helping the sector recruit and retain skilled employees.”

The body of the strategy mentions apprenticeships (“delivering 20,000 apprenticeships through central government procurement over this Parliament”), it talks about the need for skills in building information modelling (BIM; read our previous post: Tackling skills gaps: can we learn from BIM?) – still a major component of the digital vision – and then underlines the major skills challenges:

“Employers are facing difficulties in attracting skilled employees and 13% of employers reported not having enough skilled employees for some of 2014. This skills gap, if not addressed, will lead to inflation and reduced productivity in the way the industry operates. … Young people are currently underrepresented in the construction industry compared to the economy as a whole, only around 10% are aged between 19 and 24.”

Skills planning tools

Interestingly, to support its skills drive, the strategy says the Construction Leadership Council is developing a guide on what good skills investment looks like, to aid both government procurers and the industry when bidding for future government contracts. And since publishing its National Infrastructure Plan for Skills (September 2015), Infrastructure UK, now part of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, is developing a tool to help clients utilise pipeline data to model current and future skills requirements. There is also talk of “sharing market intelligence.”

We hope these ambitions are carried through, and that there is a lot of joined-up thinking. As we have previously argued (Data for efficiency and growth), there is considerable scope to take the government’s enlightened approach to open data, and to pair this with ongoing initiatives – such as SkillsPlanner (part government-funded through Innovate UK) – that are focused on improving the match of skills to jobs and enabling training provision to be responsive to industry needs.

Let’s share more data on skills and diversity

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CIC report #AB4C cover

The Construction Industry Council, the representative forum for professional bodies, research organisations and specialist business associations in the UK construction industry, has just published its latest diversity data benchmarking report. A Blueprint for Change (download here) gives insights into the industry’s progress since the first CIC Diversity Panel report was published in 2009, ahead of the introduction of the 2010 Equality Act.

The report indicates that:

  • there has been a 1% increase in the number of female professionals in the construction workforce (the industry professions remain male-dominated, with men making up 85.9%)
  • the gender mix in industry varies with age with a notable increase in females aged 25 and under
  • more people are due to retire than are joining the industry at a young age
  • only two of the participating institutions gather data on sexual orientation
  • the religious profile of the industry remains the same as in 2009
  • among those who choose to disclose ethnicity, the BAME population is 11.3% of the industry
  • less than 5% of the industry declare disability
  • consultancy is outperforming other areas of industry in attracting women and people from BAME
    background.

Gender mix by age

Data challenges

The report’s findings were collated from data supplied by a number of CIC member institutions. Sample sizes varied for each category because of the protected characteristics on which data is held, the classifications of some of those protected characteristics, and the varying disclosure rates. CIC Project Manager, Danna Walker, said:

“In order to achieve a truly reflective benchmark for industry we need everyone to agree to collect the same categories of information, and for more institutions to get involved and collaborate. If we can’t measure it, we can’t manage it and improve!”

A Blueprint for Change features case studies demonstrating pockets of activity to support industry practitioners (one is SkillsPlanner partner Thames Tideway’s Women Returners Programme – mentioned in a previous post Catch them when they’re older) and calls on industry to undertake three major actions:

  • address the needs of a multi-generational workforce, particularly in terms of retention, and focus efforts on attracting new entrants and building on the successes of attracting a more diverse millennial cohort (just today, Construction News commented: “New blood is what is needed – not just young people but a more diverse workforce, including those of working age who have never worked in construction before”).
  • provide greater support and celebrate inclusive activities and in particular those led by practitioners who are creating positive impact
  • collaboration from the institutions to collect a wider range of data and for greater participation in the project (the next CIC Diversity Panel report will be published in 2018).
SkillsPlanner can help

We would certainly support each of these objectives. Addressing each one briefly:

  • A key ambition of the SkillsPlanner project is to improve understanding of diversity within the construction industry and training provision, and we are already collaborating with several industry bodies to collect data about industry skills supply and demand and about relevant demographics.
  • As a project focused on creation of a data-powered approach, the SkillsPlanner team can provide expertise on data collation, interpretation and visualisation, and could provide real-time evidence of the impacts made by participating practitioners.
  • And collaboration is at the core of the project’s aim to deliver a real-time picture of the skills landscape, with some CIC member institutions already contributing to the project, alongside central and local government, industry and training providers.

We have written to Bridget Bartlett, chair of the CIC Diversity Panel, to explore if we can help.

Construction skills: an intelligence briefing

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SERIOsummaryp1

Not only is the UK construction industry very fragmented – something we mentioned when talking about building a better built environment industry – it is also very dynamic: it is a sector which is constantly moving and changing. As a result, the SkillsPlanner team must constantly monitor relevant developments, shifts and trends in employment, education, training, skills and technologies.

To help keep all our stakeholders updated about such changes, Plymouth University’s SERIO applied research unit is part of our team, and it recently produced its first intelligence briefing on the UK construction industry skills landscape (PDF) – one of several SkillsPlanner background briefings now available in our media section. A series of SERIO briefings will be published throughout the two-year SkillsPlanner programme, written in clear, non-academic English, and intended to engage our audiences with the ongoing R&D project.

The state of the construction sector

As we are still in the early intelligence and data-gathering phases, the first briefing provides a broad initial overview of the key issues affecting the demand and supply of skills within the construction sector in London and the southeast. On the demand side, the ageing workforce (see previous post), technological changes such as adoption of modern methods of construction, government regulations, and the impact of the recession are summarised. On Supply of skilled workers, the briefing looks at:

  • the industry’s (in)ability to attract potential recruits
  • employer attitudes
  • the limited completion of apprenticeships
  • regional imbalances in qualification levels
  • migration
  • volume of training provision, and
  • local issues affecting travel to work or training.

The briefing then outlines recent developments including the establishment of the National Infrastructure Commission (post), changes in apprenticeship funding, plus funding for further and higher education, and area-based reviews. As well as giving a readable outline of key changes, the briefing also includes hyperlinks to source information.

New data

CITB 2016-2020 forecastPerhaps inevitably, given the volatility of the industry, almost as soon as we published the briefing, one of these sources was updated. Today, we’ve been browsing through the latest CITB/Experian Construction Skills Network Forecasts 2016-2020, which shows over 230,000 new construction jobs need to be created across the UK by 2020.

We believe SkillsPlanner will help the UK meet that target, and in this video, project director Rebecca Lovelace describes how.

We will be publishing more information about the project throughout the next two years. Another, longer, video (including a clip filmed at SERIO in Plymouth) will be published later this month when we formally launch the SkillsPlanner project at the Institution of Civil Engineers in London on 24 February. If you haven’t received an invitation and would like to come to this event, please email us at [email protected].

Catch them when they’re older

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Construction will need to find

SkillsPlanner isn’t just about young workers. It will also embrace programmes focused on the three R’s: in this case, returning, retraining and retaining.

A lot of the UK construction skills shortage rhetoric tends to focus on ‘catching them when they’re young’. For example, we read about making the industry more attractive to young people, encouraging young people to look at science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) routes to future careers, and promoting construction-related apprenticeships to school leavers. All very laudible, but additionally there are huge opportunities for older generations of workers.

Returnship programmes

Tideway logoIt was encouraging today, for example, to read how SkillsPlanner partner Tideway is specifically targeting potential industry returners, including women who have taken time out to raise families, with a programme of paid-for internships. Commited to creating a more diverse workforce, Tideway CEO Andy Mitchell sees the returnship programme as an obvious way to attract experienced and able workers:

“It is widely recognised that one of the biggest pools of untapped talent is with professionals who have taken a break from their career, and then found it difficult to find work in their area of expertise because of the gap of relevant experience in their CVs.

“Building on our successful returner programme from last year, the first outside the banking sector, we have expanded our scheme to include our delivery partners Amey, Costain, Ferrovial Agroman and Laing O’Rourke. This, combined with our flexible working policy, provides a very positive pathway for professionals to return to a fulfilling career.”

Returnship programmes are among the initiatives that SkillsPlanner is intended to support and exploit to bridge the gap between industry demand for skilled workers and individuals looking for rewarding careers.

Retraining redundant workforces

A related opportunity is to look at retraining workers from other industry sectors. For example, in recent months we have seen major redundancy programmes affect steelworkers in north-east England and south Wales, among other areas; many of these workers will have transferable knowledge, skills and experiences that can readily be redeployed in the construction sector, particularly if there are major regional projects offering potential employment.

Insite Forum (image shared by @insite_forum on Twitter)Yesterday, SkillsPlanner team members attended the launch of the In-Site Forum at Celtic Manor near Newport in south Wales and heard how skills shortages are creating a damaging ‘bidding war’ for skills. Event organisers Acorn, Y Prentis and The Celtic Manor are collaborating in a bid to avoid this, and support for their cause came this week from Sir Terry Matthews, chairman of the Swansea Bay City Region local enterprise group. He told Construction News that a government rethink on the long-term funding of the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon Project could be key to providing much-needed employment for workers who have lost their jobs.

While SkillsPlanner’s initial focus is on London and the south-east, we are keen to extend the concept to cover other parts of the UK.

Retaining older workers

CIOB report coverOf course, skills shortages might be reduced if we didn’t lose construction workers in the first place. The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) has been researching the effects of the ageing population on the construction industry and in its second major report, Exploring the Impact of the Ageing Population on the Workforce and Built Environment (PDF here), published in December 2015, outlines how retaining ageing workers’ knowledge and skills is also crucial: we need greater investment in and recognition of ageing workers.

With 19% of the construction workforce set to retire in the next five to ten years, the CIOB said employers need to overcome stereotypes and repurpose, where necessary, job descriptions to attract and, most importantly, retain older workers. Importantly, this is not a substitute for investing in training, but should work hand-in-hand to help alleviate the ongoing skills crisis. CIOB deputy chief executive Bridget Bartlett said:

“… if construction is to meet the skills crisis it faces and fill the 224,000 vacancies needed by 2019, … employers must also recognise the skills of their existing workers and put in measures such as flexible working, career reviews or even retirement planning to encourage longer working lives. … Skills shortages in construction are compounded by those entering the industry not being suitably qualified for the position. We should take this opportunity to use older workers to tap into their skills and knowledge and ensure they are passed onto the next generation.”

SkillsPlanner: yesterday, today and tomorrow

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SP-circular-infographic

I had no idea when my construction journey started that I would one day be writing this: today we agreed a £1.3m initiative that has the most fundamental of aims, to connect those that are out of work with an industry full of opportunity, and to do so in the most collaborative means possible.

SkillsPlanner went live today. It is a data platform that will allow stakeholders within an industry or sector to share current and future employment needs, facilitating collaborative planning, training and brokerage to meet the industry’s requirements. We have over 30 organisations already involved and the premise is very simple: share your skills supply AND demand data, do so collaboratively using Open Linked Data (it’s not a database, nor a report that will sit on a shelf), and join other passionate people that want to build a platform that is for use by industry, by training providers, by councils and by job brokers.

SkillsPlanner will one day be free for individuals and it is being built today by those that will use it tomorrow – and in 2050.

Yes, it is a hugely ambitious project. But the reason I’m doing it is because this is one amazing industry, full of opportunity, and it is crying out for workers. But the workers aren’t being trained with the skills employers need. And everybody knows this. And the image of the industry is poor. And everybody knows this. And there are pockets of exceptionally good practice, that not enough people know about. But the industry is fragmented and the challenge is just oh, so big.

BUT if you can get the right passionate people around the table, telling us, for example, that data needs to be standardised to reflect competencies and qualifications, giving time to share their expertise and knowledge and working on this data collaboratively, then together we can do something amazing. We will build SkillsPlanner TOGETHER. We will spend time doing it properly, in collaboration with anyone that cares about those that are unemployed, about those being trained in the wrong areas, about an industry that could be so much more to so many more people.

Come and join us. We’re going to do something amazing.