Skills transferability needed post-Brexit

The CITB has released new research investigating how to tackle the skills crisis.

With Brexit on the horizon, the research points to the need for greater skills transferability, with a key goal to attracting talent from other sectors and trades.

The new report, ‘Construction and Built Environment: Skills Transferability in the UK’, surveying 500 employers across the UK, found that with a smaller construction talent pool post-Brexit, the sector needs to look at encouraging people from different industries to look at construction as a good career progression.

The industry is not noted for its diversity of talent, with researchers finding that 62% of employers took no action to encourage employees to transfer between trades. This is despite approximately one in five (19%) of construction sector workers having previously worked in another sector.

The report highlighted manual occupations, such as steel erectors and bricklayers, as the roles with the best potential to transfer skills.

The survey pointed to a number of challenges in increasing skills transferability, including:

• Improving the image of the industry
• Changing the way training is delivered to it promotes multi-skilling
• Concerns from employees and unions around multi-skilling

Steve Radley, CITB Policy Director, said: “Our research shows that transferability of skills is a growing issue, particularly with Brexit looming.

“While many employers are not yet looking at it, it could become a significant way to meet our skills needs in the coming years.

“CITB clearly has a role to play in this. Our forecasts can help prioritise support for upskilling and ensure training providers are well placed to respond. In addition, we will collaborate with industry to develop top-up courses to enable transition for people with relevant transferable skills.”

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