Julie Deeley, Futureworks Yorkshire
On 25th May we held the second of our Hull based Constructing Excellence breakfasts at Gosschalks Solicitors, this time tackling one of the most prevalent issues in the industry at the moment, the skills shortage. It has been predicted that the industry will create around 190,000 new jobs by the end of 2018 but the growing fear is that the talent will not be there to fill those posts. At our event we heard from Futureworks Yorkshire and Wates Group on how they are working to create apprenticeships and encourage new entrants to our industry in order to try and tackle this deificit.
Debbie Hall, Business Reporter at Hull Daily Mail has done a summary of the main points in her article dated 31st May (link here). The article has also been reproduced below for ease.
L-R Angie Eardley (Wates), Janet Mulcrone (Leeds Beckett), Tom Oulton (CEYH), Liz Schofield (CEYH), Matthew Fletcher (Gosschalks)
Construction firms urged to help tackle impending shortage in talent
COMPANIES are being urged to help tackle the skills shortage in the construction industry. The issue was the focus of an “excellence breakfast” hosted by Hull law firm Gosschalks. The event, organised by Constructing Excellence in Yorkshire & Humber (CEYH), was held amid growing fears there will not be sufficient talent within the country to fill the predicted 190,000 new jobs that will be created in construction by the end of 2018. The industry is seen as one of the leading pillars of the UK economy and the lack of required skills could have a huge impact on economic recovery, according to CEYH. The event saw more than 30 delegates from a range of contractors, councils, training groups and construction consultancies, in attendance.
Steve Savage, Development Director at Gosschalks, opened the proceedings and Tom Oulton, chairman of CEYH, gave an introduction in which he spoke about the Government’s Construction Strategy for 2016 to 2020, which sets out to increase productivity in government construction to deliver £1.7bn efficiencies and support 20,000 apprenticeships over the period.
One of the speakers was Julie Deeley, operations manager for Futureworks Yorkshire, one of the organisations working to tackle the skills deficit and nurture homegrown talent. She offered insight into how Futureworks is working with construction companies, local organisations and communities across Yorkshire to offer increased apprenticeships and work experience opportunities. Ms Deeley said: “It is not about providing all the answers today, it is about opening your mind to what your company can do about meeting this skills shortage.” Futureworks is based in Hull and Rotherham and delivers the award- winning YORfuture scheme across the Yorkshire and Humber region. It provides apprenticeships within the sector, including technical, trades, administration and manufacturing/distribution roles.
Ms Deeley told delegates that the YORfuture shared apprenticeship scheme provided a solution to apprenticeship recruitment when employers may not have the resources to take apprentices on a full-time basis. Asked about the difficulty of encouraging schools to see the opportunities that exist in the industry, Ms Deeley said: “What we need to do is get out there as much as possible and put out the word on construction and what a good career it is. We need, as a sector, to get the message out that there are many different careers you can have in construction, in particular for females. ”
Another speaker was Angie Eardley, community investment adviser at Wates Group, a family-owned construction company that is currently helping to create an £80m housing development in Hull for people with care needs. She spoke to the audience about the group’s community investment commitments and it’s supply chain and social enterprise engagement. The delegates heard the CITB, the national training organisation for construction in the UK, has reported that another 230,000 workers will be needed in the construction sector in the next five years – a figure that equates to 3,230 people each year in the Yorkshire and Humber region.
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Julie and Angie’s presentations along with a storify of the best tweets/images from the morning can be viewed at the links below.
Click below for full Presentations from 25th May 2016
