Britain must recruit one worker every 77 seconds to meet construction needs, claims Arcadis

Darmstadt (ots) - Annual 400,000 people deficit threatens the UK's
housing and infrastructure delivery

- Failure to tackle labour shortfall could give rise to UK's
MINTED workforce - Most in Need Trades Earning Double
- UK could miss out on an additional 215,000 migrant workers by
2020 in event of 'hard' Brexit

British construction must recruit over 400,000 people each and
every year between now and 2021 - equivalent to one worker every 77
seconds - if it is to create the homes and infrastructure the nation
needs, according to the latest report from Arcadis. Failure to
address the skills gulf could even see the earnings of some
tradespeople sky-rocketing inside a generation, leading to the rise
of the MINTED workforce - the Most in Need Trades Earning Double.

The Arcadis Talent Scale has been developed to measure the true
extent of the skills crisis across the infrastructure and house
building workforce. In house building alone, the study shows that if
the UK is to increase output to 270,000 new homes over the next five
years, it will need to employ in excess of 370,000 new people.
Meanwhile, when it comes to meeting forecast national infrastructure
requirements, an additional 36,500 people will need to be employed
every year.

When it comes to individual skills, the greatest need is for
carpenters and joiners, where demand accounts for nearly one sixth of
all national resource requirements. Plumbers, Electricians, and
Bricklayers are also in high demand, particularly in the
labour-intensive housebuilding sector. Meanwhile, the report
identifies a need for over 7,400 Civil Engineers and 7,300 Quantity
Surveyors.

London and the South East will need to employ more people than any
other part of the UK, accounting for nearly 30 percent of total
demand (110,000 people). With major national infrastructure
programmes such as HS2 and Crossrail 2 already in the pipeline, it is
expected that companies will need to draw heavily on the common
talent pool of transferable skills if delivery targets are to be
achieved.

Outside of London and the South East, the highest skills
requirement is in the East of England and the South West, where more
than 43,000 and 41,000 additional workers respectively are needed to
meet projected regional housing and infrastructure requirements. At
the bottom of the table is Northern Ireland, where employment demand
accounts for just 3 percent of the national total.

New people needed each year to fulfil house building and
infrastructure needs 2016-2021 (an excerpt)

Carpenters & Joiners 60,409
Plumbers 46,827
Electricians 40,340