feature Labour – Construction skills
MILLION PLUS HOMES OR JUST HIGH HOPES?
Govt pledges 1.5m homes – but without the labour and skills will it happen?
Among Labour’s key manifesto pledges is a major housebuilding programme – one that aims to create 1.5m homes over the course of this Parliament. It’s an ambitious target to be sure, and one that’s desperately needed, after years of the UK’s skyrocketing demand for housing outstripping supply.
Labour said it will boost housebuilding to levels never before seen by overhauling the planning system, making it easier for developers to invest in building new homes.
But for every home built, several building workers must be involved, many in highly skilled, specialised trades. Does the UK possess the labour and skills needed to meet the government’s housebuilding targets?
From all corners of the construction industry, the answer – at least as things now stand – is an emphatic no.
Last year, the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) estimated that to meet Labour’s housebuilding targets alone would require an additional 152,000 construction workers.
Acknowledging that housebuilding targets are meaningless without the skills and sheer manpower needed to meet them, the government announced, on the eve of its Spring Statement, new investment in construction training.
The investment is set to include £600m to train 60,000 more skilled construction workers by 2029. Then £100m of this will go into new investment to fund 10 Technical Excellence Colleges spread throughout the UK; £165m from the pot will be ploughed into helping colleges deliver more construction courses. Construction skills bootcamps will receive an additional £100m in funding.
A further £100m in government funding, alongside £32m from the CITB will be used to fund 40,000 placements each year.
Introducing the new investment pledge, chancellor Rachel Reeves said, “We are determined to get Britain building again…But none of this is possible without the engineers, brickies, sparkies, and chippies to actually get the work done, which we are facing a massive shortage of.”
32 unite buildingWORKER Autumn 2025
Unite’s Trevor Simpson welcomed Labour’s funding pledge, but for him, he’s heard it all before.
“Any investment in the construction industry is good investment, and in that sense, we’re all for it,” Trevor told buildingWORKER. “But if we want this and any future investment in skills to be a real solution to the problems we face, then we must have everyone involved in the industry – including trade unions – around the table.”
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If we want this and any future investment in skills to be a real solution to the problems we face, then we must have everyone…including trade unions – around the table
Trevor Simpson, Unite convenor, London
Trevor went on to explain that funding pledges to train up a set number of workers have been tried before – and it hasn’t worked in recent years.
“Successive governments have always come out with these grand plans – that they’re going to train X number of people in X number of years with X millions of pounds.
Mark Thomas
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