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PRO INSTALLER NOVEMBER 2016
PRO BUSINESS
@proinstaller1
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.
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.
try 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
Wayne Lysaght-Mason,
Managing Director at IronmongeryDirect
The survey of 1,000 people, who
have required the services 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 indus-
“Having said this, we urgently
n eed 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.”
www.ironmongerydirect.com