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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.
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 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 th e
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
LOCKSMITHJOURNAL.CO.UK | NOV/DEC 2016
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 hands-on, workbased 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.”