Britain will need tens of thousands of additional construction workers if it is to significantly increase housebuilding, with the industry’s growing skills shortage risks becoming a major constraint on housing delivery
According to Vistry, greater use of modern methods of construction can help address the skills crisis by shifting more activity into controlled factory environments and reducing reliance on labour-intensive processes on individual development sites, speeding up delivery processes.
Adam Daniels, chief executive at Vistry Group, stated: “The scale of the housing challenge means we cannot simply rely on doing more of what we have always done. We need to increase capacity and productivity while investing in the next generation of construction skills.
“MMC gives us an opportunity to do both. By combining factory manufacturing with the skills of our teams on site, we can build more efficiently, provide high-quality careers and apprenticeships, and ultimately deliver more affordable homes.”
Several factors are contributing to the construction skills crisis
According to the Home Builders Federation, every additional 10,000 homes the government wants to deliver each year will require an estimated 30,000 additional workers.
At the same time, the construction workforce is ageing. The average age of a bricklayer in the UK is now 53, while the industry continues to struggle to attract and train enough people to meet future demand.
How MMC can help the existing construction workforce go further
Rather than replacing skilled trades, MMC can help the industry’s existing workforce go further, increasing productivity while creating new manufacturing, engineering and technical career opportunities.
“Modern methods of construction allow us to manufacture more of a home in a controlled factory environment, reducing the amount of labour-intensive work needed on site and helping our skilled workforce become more productive,” explained Jack Brayshaw, head of research and innovation at Vistry Group.
“This isn’t about replacing traditional construction skills. It’s about complementing them, creating new skills and career opportunities and making sure a shortage of capacity doesn’t become a brake on the country’s housing ambitions.”
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