According to our latest Risk and Confidence survey 71% of UK Multinational Construction companies are hiring new staff. This isn’t a surprise as the UK construction industry will need to recruit over 400,000 people each year until 2021 in order to successfully deliver housing targets and major infrastructure programmes.*
However almost half of business leaders within the industry are looking to grow topline sales and expanding market share according to our latest Risk and Confidence survey, yet despite this push there isn’t the man power to keep up with demand.
The proportion of Construction organisations reporting a lack of skilled workers is at its highest since 2007. But why is there a talent drain in the Construction industry?
Aging Workforce: Around 500,000 workers are expected to retire from the Construction industry over the next 10 years and there are not enough younger workers needed to replace them.* The construction industry needs to be working with the government and education sector to offer apprenticeships and training to ensure skilled construction personnel in the future.
Brexit: The talent pool of EU workers may also dwindle due to potentially stricter immigration policies, making replacing the retiring workers even more difficult. According to one report Brexit could result in the loss of 136,081 EU workers in the case of a ‘soft’ Brexit or 214,542 in the event of a ‘hard’ Brexit by 2020.*
Gender: Construction needs to become more appealing to women in terms of skilled trades, managerial/director roles and professional/technical roles. According to the Construction Products Association, in terms of construction administration roles, women account for over 80% of the occupied jobs and over 50% of the sales related roles. The issue is when we discuss skilled trades in which it is stated that men account for 99.2%, therefore the amount of women who have skilled trade roles in construction relate to less than 1%. This is a mentality and education related issue that needs to be addressed.
Should a large and successful recruitment drive not occur the issue of more workers leaving the Construction industry than joining it will have a major long-term impact. An aging workforce and lower levels of female employment compounded with the new issue of Brexit leading to lower employment rates are issues that the Construction industry will need to address in order to maintain growth.
By doing this and moving towards higher-tech, less labour intensive production methods the Construction companies can increase productivity, grow topline sales and expand their market share.
Mark Beattie, Underwriting Director - Property & Combined Underwriting
These findings come from our Risk and Confidence Survey, for more insights download your copy here www.cnahardy.com/pulse.
* Report by Arcadis