AI Can’t Lay a Brick or Skim a Wall: Why the Construction Skills Crisis Needs Experienced Tradespeople, Not Just Technology

With 140,000 vacancies and a third of skilled workers heading for retirement, the industry’s most valuable asset isn’t artificial intelligence – it’s the hard-won knowledge of people who’ve spent decades on the tools.

The construction sector is in the grip of a skills emergency. Over 140,000 vacancies sit unfilled across the industry, and with more than a third of its most experienced workers set to retire by 2035, the clock is ticking on a generational knowledge transfer that cannot be automated, digitised or shortcut.

Following AI Awareness Day on 4 June, three former tradespeople now working in further education are making the case that technology, for all its promise, cannot replace the practical judgement, site awareness and muscle memory that takes years to develop. And they are doing something about it: stepping out of the trade and into the classroom to make sure that expertise doesn’t retire with them.

The knowledge that lives in your hands

John Downes spent more than 20 years as a plasterer, starting as an apprentice at 16, working on building sites and running his own self-employed operation, before moving into further education as a plastering trainer at BMet Erdington Skills Centre in the West Midlands. He still works in the trade to keep his skills current. His view on AI in the sector is measured but clear.

“AI is becoming part of the conversation in every industry, and construction is no different – but trades like plastering are still built on hands-on skills and experience. Every construction job is different, and you need that judgement you only get from years on site.”

That judgement – knowing when a mix is right by how it feels, reading a wall before you touch it, adapting to conditions that no specification document anticipated – is precisely what cannot be codified into an algorithm. It is embodied knowledge, and the only way to transmit it is person to person, on site or in a workshop where materials behave the way they do on a real job.

“After more than two decades on the tools, moving into FE as a trainer was about making sure that knowledge gets passed on,” Downes says. “It’s a real chance to give your skills new life.”

From apprentice to site manager to trainer

Joseph Cummins, 30, took a different route to the same destination. Having progressed from apprentice to site manager in bricklaying before moving into further education, he now trains bricklaying and Health and Safety at BMet Erdington – while continuing to work within the construction industry alongside his teaching role.

His perspective bridges both worlds: the pace and pressure of live sites, and the needs of learners who are just beginning to understand what those environments actually demand.

“In construction, AI can support the way people work – but real site experience is still essential, from judgement to safety awareness and knowing how to do a job properly,” he says. “I came up through the trade myself, from apprentice to site manager, and now training others in FE means that experience doesn’t stop with me.”

The safety dimension Cummins raises is particularly significant. Site safety is not a theoretical framework,  it is an instinct developed through experience, sharpened by near-misses, and reinforced by the kind of situational awareness that only comes from time spent on live construction projects. It is exactly the kind of knowledge that a learner cannot acquire from a screen.

“Technology will have a role to play, but if we don’t keep investing in people and practical training alongside it, we risk losing the expertise the sector depends on.”

Three decades of trade knowledge, now in the classroom

Ian Hall, 54, began his apprenticeship in Bolton in the late 1980s. More than two decades working across the plumbing, heating and renewables sector followed before he made the move into further education, where he now teaches plumbing, heating and renewable technologies at Bolton College, a curriculum that sits at the intersection of traditional trade skills and the net zero transition reshaping the built environment.

His subject area makes the AI question particularly pointed. Renewable heating technologies – heat pumps, solar thermal, hydrogen-ready systems – are genuinely complex, genuinely evolving, and genuinely dependent on engineers who understand not just the theory but the practical realities of installation across diverse and often challenging building stock.

“AI can support parts of the construction industry, but the core of the job is still hands-on. You learn by doing, working with materials, solving problems, building confidence over time. Those are things you can’t fully replicate with technology.”

Hall draws directly on his own experience to prepare learners for what they will actually encounter: “Training others means I can pass that knowledge on where it matters most and give learners a realistic understanding of what the industry expects.”

The real pipeline problem

The numbers behind this conversation are stark. With 140,000 vacancies and an impending retirement wave among the industry’s most skilled cohort, the construction sector faces not just a workforce shortage but a knowledge shortage, and those are not the same problem, nor solved by the same solutions.

Recruitment campaigns, immigration policy and technology adoption all have a role. But the irreplaceable element is experienced tradespeople choosing to step into further education and carry what they know into the next generation of workers. The three trainers profiled here are doing exactly that, and the industry needs many more like them.

As Downes puts it: “As the industry changes, that link between real-world experience and real-world training becomes even more important. It’s how we make sure the next generation has the skills the sector needs and keep that pipeline of talent coming through.”

AI will undoubtedly reshape parts of construction, in design, in project management, in monitoring and data analysis. But it will not replace the person who knows, from feel and experience, whether that mix is right. That knowledge lives in people. And right now, the industry’s most urgent task is making sure it doesn’t walk out of the door when they retire.