Sarah Beale
The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has revealed that it is to pump £17.8m worth of funding into training up 18,000 site-ready construction workers.
Contractors are being invited to apply for funding from the CITB Onsite Experience Commission over the coming months.
CITB chief executive Sarah Beale announced the new money today at an industry-led conference in Ipswich on delivering sustainable homes.
Over the next three years 20 new hubs will be established on construction sites across England, Scotland and Wales, tailored to provide training in trades where particular shortages have been identified. Each hub will develop links between employers, colleges and local government to meet locally identified skills needs.
Many of the hubs will be in rural and “left behind” areas that have also not benefitted from the earlier Construction Skills Fund (CSF). They will draw on lessons learned from the CSF, which CITB said had already exceeded many of its targets.
Beale said: “This major investment will build on the success of the Construction Skills Fund and represents an historic investment in training a site-ready workforce for construction employers across England, Scotland and Wales.
“Onsite Experience comes at a critical time for construction when it will need to grow more of its own workforce. CITB’s ‘Big Six’ support British construction to recruit its future workforce, which will also include a major careers campaign and substantially increased support for employers taking on apprentices.
“Meeting demand for new homes and investing in infrastructure requires more skilled people in construction. We face the perfect storm of an uncertain post-Brexit migration system, and an ageing workforce with many set to retire in the near future. It is therefore essential that the industry attracts, trains, and retains new talent wherever it can be found to ensure construction isn’t hampered by a shortage of site-ready workers.”
