Labour’s 1.5 million new homes pledge is in doubt due to a shortage of skilled workers – and efforts to plug the gap do not go far enough, industry leaders have warned.
Plans to train up new apprentices are a “drop in the ocean”, they claim.
And despite its promise to bring down net migration, construction experts said the Government may be forced to rely on an influx of overseas builders if it is to meet its target by the end of this parliament – which requires 300,000 homes to be built each year.
Another 25,000 bricklayers, 3,000 extra plumbers, 4,000 additional plasterers, 10,000 more carpenters, and 3,000 new electricians would be needed, according to figures from the Home Builders Federation (HBF) and the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB).
Homebuilding Skills Hubs, created to train up the next generation of construction workers through 5,000 apprenticeship places, were a welcome part of the Government’s flagship housing scheme.
But industry insiders warned that even with the fast-track training, the UK’s workforce will still be too small to meet Labour’s ambitious building plans as the country is looking to plug an estimated gap of between 250,000 and 300,000 workers due to the scaling up of the annual housebuilding target.
The Government has said the shortage of construction workers in the UK is a result of “years of underinvestment in skills”.
A spokesperson added: “We will pull every lever… to deliver on the commitment which includes building a diverse workforce fit for the future in the UK and ending reliance on overseas labour.”
Steve Turner, an executive director of the HBF, said: “We’re not going to go from 200,000 homes a year to 300,000 homes a year in a year’s time.
“To get to however many hubs the Government is talking about, is going to take some time. And even when they’re fully up to speed, that’s not going to be enough.“
Colin Brown, head of planning and development at consultancy firm Carter Jonas, called Labour’s housebuilding pledge “unrealistic”.
Training the required number of people in the core skills could take “a generation”.
“It’s a bit fanciful to assume that you’re suddenly going to have at your beck and call the resources that you need to deliver the numbers,” he said.
While the target of 5,000 new apprenticeships each year through the hubs was an important aim, it was a “drop in the ocean”, he added. “I’m not sure it’s going to be transformational.”
This comes as four locations – two commuter villages and urban extensions of the two biggest cities in the North of England – have been recommended for the development of Labour’s new towns.
In the initiative, ministers vowed to build the UK’s first new towns in a generation, each containing at least 10,000 homes, in a bid to deliver 1.5 million new homes by the end of the current parliament.
The Government’s New Towns Taskforce is currently scoping locations for the new settlements, with a shortlist expected to be put before ministers by July.
Patrick Hickey, a former head of development at housing association Arcon in Manchester, said the construction industry has been grappling with the “ticking timebomb” of an aging workforce for years, with more than 20 per cent of the workforce over 50 and due to retire within the next decade.
A dropout rate as high as 40 per cent among construction apprentices was another factor, he said.
According to Statista, there are currently around 2.14 million people employed in the construction sector in the UK, compared with just over 2 million in the first quarter of 2000.
While new apprentices would be a “huge help”, the new skills hubs will not create enough workers quickly enough.
Experts agreed that the homebuilding target would not be possible unless a migrant workforce was brought in.
“It’s not a short term silver bullet,” Hickey said. “There’s probably going to need to be some sort of relaxation of immigration rules or, allowing short, medium term visas for specific, large infrastructure projects.
“The apprentice skills hubs probably should have happened 10, 15, 20 years ago, and we might not be having this conversation now.”
Asked earlier this month if the UK would need to rely on overseas workers, the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “No, we’ve got to get the construction workers we need trained up. I don’t accept that we can never shift the dial on this.”
The Government is working with the CITB and the National House-Building Council (NHBC) to launch its new skills hubs.
Out of the 32 total hubs proposed by the Government, the NHBC will open 12 to provide apprenticeships and training for skills which are in critical demand such as bricklaying, groundwork and site carpentry.
This week, planning permission for the first hub, in Lichfield, Staffordshire, was secured with a second hub due to be developed later this year and a handful of other sites being considered.
The fast-track apprenticeships offered by the hubs can be completed in 12-18 months – half the time of a traditional 24-30 month construction apprenticeship.
But earlier this month, the Government announced up to 10,000 more apprentices will be able to qualify per year by allowing employers to decide whether apprentices over the age of 19 need to complete a level 2 English and maths qualification.
The minimum duration of an apprenticeship will also be reduced to eight months, down from 12 months, from August 2025.
Turner said apprenticeships for trainees aged 16-18 also needed to be more intensive, with some apprentices only receiving four hours of practical training a week.
He called for reform of the CITB in order to support training and upskilling for trades required to achieve net zero targets, such as heat pumps and solar panels.
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, is aiming for 600,000 heat pumps to be installed every year from 2028.
Increasing the number of women, ex-Armed Forces and former offenders would also help, said Turner, who believes recruitment gaps could be filled by a predominantly UK workforce.
David Barnes, acting head of policy and public affairs UK at the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), welcomed the ambition of the housebuilding target but had “significant concerns” about the pragmatism and the scale of the goal.
Barnes said the CIOB also had concerns over quality and control if the timescale were reduced, citing the Grenfell disaster as the “most tragic and large-scale” construction failing.
“You wouldn’t want people coming onto housing projects very quickly with a short time frame. They need to be trained with necessary skills,” he said.
“Cutting time shouldn’t mean cutting the vital skills qualifications, training that’s needed.”
Turner described the Government’s housebuilding target as “very challenging”, with a lack of workers just one of the obstacles.
The trade body wants the capacity of local authority planning departments to be increased so planning applications for new build homes can be processed quickly, as well as more mortgage support for buyers.
“At the minute, the market is probably the biggest constraint on delivery. Mortgage availability dictates that there’s not enough people in the market to buy the homes. First time buyers, in particular, can’t get mortgages,” Turner said.
“We’ve also got a problem with housing associations which can’t purchase the affordable houses that house builders would deliver as part of a planning permission.
“The market is artificially suppressing demand, because neither housing associations or individual buyers can currently get onto that proxy ladder.
“Until you address that, and until you put the capacity into local authority planning departments to effectively process applications, you’re going to struggle to get the industry to increase output.”
It takes eleven years for the average first-time buyer to get on the property ladder due to rising mortgage rates and deposits.
The average cost of a home for a first time buyer in Britain is £245,430, according to estate agency, Hamptons, which calculated it would take five-a-half years for a couple to buy, or 11 years for a single person.
Research this week from Skipton Group building society, which owns estate agency Connells, found just one in ten potential first-time buyers could afford to get on the property ladder without relying on their family for financial help.
A Government spokesperson said: “Years of underinvestment in skills has created a dire shortage of construction workers. Through our Plan for Change we will boost growth with an extra 5,000 construction apprentices set to start annually through the 32 Homebuilding Skills Hubs we announced last year.
“Our recent moves to slash red tape will lead to an extra 10,000 apprentices qualifying per year, and we are taking decisive action to fix the housing crisis by overhauling the broken planning system and investing £5bn in housing this year.
“We will pull every lever at government’s disposal to deliver on the commitment which includes building a diverse workforce fit for the future in the UK and ending reliance on overseas labour.”
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