The number of people starting apprenticeships in “construction, planning and the built environment” in England in 2014-15 has risen for the second year in the row to 17,820.
This compares to the 15,890 individuals starting apprenticeships in 2013-14 and 13,730 in 2012-13.
But although the 2014-15 figure is the highest since 2010-11, the number of apprenticeship starts is still far fewer than in 2006-07 when the number of people starting apprenticeships in construction peaked at 27,300.
The results come as the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) also announced that record high numbers of 872,000 people were employed on government-funded apprenticeships during the 2014 to 2015 academic year.
"The increased numbers of apprenticeships may not solve the skills shortage in the short-term, this will be solved by people coming back from other industries and abroad. However, the statistics suggest that the industry is starting to invest more in the future."
Tom Crane, Glenigan
Tom Crane, an economist at industry analyst Glenigan, believes that the increase in apprenticeship starts demonstrates that the industry is responding to predictions of skills shortage and planning for the future.
“The increased numbers of apprenticeships may not solve the skills shortage in the short-term, this will be solved by people coming back from other industries and abroad. However, the statistics suggest that the industry is starting to invest more in the future,” he told Construction Manager.
He added: “At the moment I think that the fear of the skill shortage is greater than the actual shortage in labour on the ground. The awareness that has been created may be encouraging companies to plan ahead. If we were to have another year with growth of 4-5% then we would have issues, but growth of 2-3% the industry should be able to handle.”
The news of increased number of apprenticeships comes as employment in the industry itself continues to grow modestly with the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics showing the numbers employed in construction rising by 0.5% from 2,096,000 to 2,106,000 over the past year.
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But this rate of increase is less that the rate of construction output has increased over the past year: Crane believes this shows that the industry is becoming more productive.
“Output has been slightly slower over the summer months, but we are ahead of where we were last year. Productivity that has being fairly low for the past couple of years is now starting to pick up.”
The reduced number of number of hours being worked by each employee also highlighted in the ONS report supports the fact that the industry is becoming more productive.
Starts is one measure but the real test will be the number that successfully complete their apprenticeships. Back in the last boom period in 2003-4, only about 30% of apprentices completed the apprenticeship.
So whilst a 12% increase in starts looks good, it’s from a desperately low base and as Tom Crane says will do nothing in the short term to ease the skills crisis.