Mind the Gap - What Gap? Oh, that Gap!
During the summer I delivered a talk to the Chartered Institute of Civil Engineering Surveyors’ (Chartered ICES) commercial conference in London. The hot topic – “The Skills Gap”.
The key questions:
- “Is it real?”
- “How big is it?”
- “And of course - how can we fix it?”
I reviewed as much data as possible, and inevitably found a wide range of answers, many of which conflicted with other sources. By reviewing the data overall it is possible to come to some conclusions, and a very worrying scenario. Over the next three years, the demand for skilled construction sector staff will peak beyond the current capacity the industry has for skilled staff, and a during this time, Brexit is likely to reduce the number available in any event.
Lots of questions and even more facts to ponder – here are a few key points:
- Estimates suggest a shortfall of between 400,000 and 600,000 construction related workers in the next 5-10 years.
- Data regarding the industry is fragmented and varies widely – if we don’t know our start point how can we plan to succeed?
- It takes a decade or more to produce professional skilled workers.
- There is no magic wand solution.
For a more in-depth look at the ‘gap’ - what, where, and how, you can read my full article by clicking here. The paper provides a summary of my review of the available data, and some of the suggestions of urgent actions that I made for the professional bodies to take, to help the industry use transferable skills from other industries.
This is a critical issue for the construction industry. If you have any thoughts or comments on this topic, please add them below.