The Home Building Skills report, published jointly by the Home Builders Federation (HBF), National House Building Council (NHBC), Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and the Zero Carbon Hub, found that 50% of all house builders and 80% of housing associations are recruiting this year. The report also found that 25% of house builders are spending more on training than they were five years ago and 33% would like to increase spending on training. All of the companies surveyed provide some form of training to sub contractors, says the report.
Mike Quinton, chief executive of NHBC, said: “Everyone has known for some time about the ageing workforce and the impact of the recession on our industry’s ability to attract and retain skilled workers. As the home building industry shows the first signs of growth after several years, we are now hearing increasing alarm about the availability of the right people with the right skills to allow us to maximise these opportunities for growth.”
According to the report, 45% of the house building industry believes more needs to be done to ensure the sector has the right skills in place when the industry returns to growth. It was also noted that with the general economic climate improving, and the constraints on supply being addressed, government initiatives such as the ‘Help to Buy’ scheme were helping to revive the house building industry, which in Q1 2013 saw output increase 29.5% on 2012 and 0.2% on 2008 levels.
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