Clearview National December 2016 - Issue 181 | Page 21

INDUSTRYNEWS

Driving future growth
»»WAYNE LYSAGHT-MASON,
Managing Director at
IronmongeryDirect, the UK’s
largest supplier of ironmongery
products to the trade,
discusses the UK skills gap and
explains how changes to the
Apprenticeship Levy will affect
the construction sector…
“The recent announcement
regarding changes to the
Apprentice Levy is welcome
news for the construction sector,
particularly as it struggles with its
biggest skills crisis in almost 20
years,” says Wayne.
DWINDLING NUMBERS
“Following the recession, the
sector lost around 324,000 skilled
workers, and currently there
are not enough people entering
the profession to meet existing
work requirements - or to replace
the number of workers soon to
hit retirement age. As a result,
pressure is mounting on the
industry to take immediate action
to attract fresh, new talent to
bridge the gap.”
However, UK tradespeople are
refusing to let sector challenges
affect their job performance, new
research has found. A study by
IronmongeryDirect revealed that
homeowners are still impressed
with the work that is being
carried out by trade professionals,
despite noticing that the numbers
of tradespeople available are
dwindling.

of a tradesperson over the past
year, also revealed the increasing
difficultly to hire a skilled
professional to carry out home
renovations and repairs.
One in six people (16%) spent
more than three weeks looking
for someone suitable to undertake
the work, and two thirds (36%)
said they noticed a significant
shortage of skilled professionals
when trying to find a person for
the job.
Last year the Federation of
Master Builders (FMB) found
that 66% of small firms had been
forced to turn away work due
to a lack of staff and resources,
showing that the situation has not
improved.
Wayne continues: “The lack
of skilled tradespeople in the
industry is a huge concern,
especially as the public is now
starting to see evidence of this.
“Despite there being fewer
skilled tradespeople around to
meet existing work requirements,
it’s encouraging to see that the
ones who are available are doing
a good job and managing to keep

up excellent standards of work,
despite the pressures being put
upon them.
CREATING A
SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
“Having said this, we urgently
need to attract more talent to the
sector to ensure standards don’t
slip and prevent people from
having to wait for long periods
of time to get a job completed.
Steps must be taken to encourage
more people into the industry
to develop the skills needed for
a sustainable future, perhaps by
inspiring young people into a
construction career.
“Creating more training and
apprenticeship opportunities
is an effective way of appealing
to young people and upskilling
them in the areas most in need
of additional workers. Therefore,
the amended Apprenticeship Levy
is a huge step forward for the
construction sector, as it will help
to generate more opportunities
for young people to learn a
valuable new trade and progress
their careers.

“One of the main issues the
sector had with the original levy
was that smaller companies would
miss out on government support
towards meeting the costs of
apprenticeship training, as they
were not eligible to pay the levy.
However, the announced changes
mean that small companies will
receive increased funding, which
should encourage more firms to
take on young apprentices, giving
them the chance to receive handson, work-based experience.
“Given the severity of the
construction skills shortage,
employers have a responsibility
to train the next generation of
workers to ensure they have the
skills to drive forward growth in
the future.”

SIGNIFICANT SHORTAGE
Nearly 90% of the public
gave praise to the high quality of
service they received once they
had sourced someone to complete
the job. 88% said they were
happy with the finished result,
9% said it was satisfactory and
only 3% said they were not happy
with the work undertaken.
The survey of 1,000 people,
who have required the services

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