News analysis with BESA


COP26 can be launch pad for green skills drive


Demand for building engineering expertise has never been greater, but our skills shortages make it increasingly diffi cult to meet our targets, says BESA President Neil Brackenridge


businesses can walk and chew gum. We need short- term fi xes to spur recovery and long-term reforms to change our economic model.” We should take heart because being able to


innovate our way out of trouble has never been a problem in this country. Britain has a rich heritage of innovation and discovery that is still alive and well judging by a 2019 government report. It showed that more than 3% of the UK economy (£63.8bn) came from ideas and innovations protected by intellectual property rights i.e., patented ideas that were in the process of being turned into working inventions.


Failure BESA President Neil Brackenridge L


abour shortages were a major feature of our industry throughout 2021 and we expect more of the same next year. Sadly, this is a case of the ‘same old same old’. Things might be a bit more extreme than usual, but skills shortages are not new. These continual cycles mean we regularly suff er from poor productivity and slow uptake of new technologies – especially during periods of economic recovery when the market is moving so fast. Last year saw record-breaking numbers of


vacancies across construction and the CBI predicted UK labour shortages could last for more than two years. Director general Tony Danker said we needed a more ‘innovative’ approach driven by better training to improve business performance, wages and living standards in a sustainable way. “The Government’s ambition that the UK economy should become more high-skilled and productive is right but implying that this can be achieved overnight is simply wrong,” he said. “Great economies like great


Of course, not all of these are successful. Britain’s most famous modern innovator James Dyson is an unlikely supporter of failure. In fact, his publisher had to talk him out of calling his new book ‘Failure’ and they have gone with ‘Invention’ instead. He still makes the point forcefully that, for every good idea and prototype that works, there are thousands that fail. Without failing you can’t succeed in the end. He explains that every successful invention is the


result of trial and error. His famous vacuum cleaner took more than 5,000 prototypes before Dyson fi nally found one that worked. He got to where he was going because he knew where he wanted to go and was prepared to keep innovating along the way. He also believes Britain is falling behind the rest of the world – Asia in particular – because we are not investing in engineers with the right abilities to innovate us out of our current constraints. “Technology is much more complex to develop


now,” he says. “When I started, we were a group of mechanical engineers, but now more than half of our engineers are software or electronics specialists.” Among his 4,000 UK staff he employs scientists,


fl uid dynamics experts and battery technologists. He has adapted his team so that he can continue to innovate, test, fail and develop new products. The building engineering sector is well placed to tap into that same vein of invention and forward thinking – and few other industries have as many opportunities and incentives. With energy prices soaring worldwide driven by a post-pandemic boom, the need for expertise in energy effi ciency and renewables has never been stronger or more economically attractive. The energy crisis experienced during 2021 makes the push for energy effi ciency and more renewable power even more urgent – and our industry is at the forefront of that, but we need to emulate Dyson’s vision of a highly skilled workforce able to innovate and turn potential into success to get there. People are the key to all of this. The push for heat pumps is a prime example. The shortage of skilled installers is the biggest threat to that market. Not only because it makes the Government’s ambitious target of 600,000 installations a year hard to achieve, but it also undermines the performance of the technology itself and so limits its eff ectiveness. The Government is also a big believer in hydrogen and published a strategy for its development earlier this year. It thinks it could employ up to 9,000 people and attract £4bn of private investment by 2030 before going on to deliver as much as 35% of the nation’s energy consumption by 2050. However, it is very expensive to produce and still


involves the burning of fossil fuels. There are also huge practical implications for introducing it into the grid. So, does it really have a future? Or could it be one of those things we have to experiment and test on the way towards fi nding solutions that really work? That requires skilled engineers who understand the pitfalls and possibilities.


10 November 2021


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