How Gloucestershire is solving the construction skills conundrum
So many plans to get our economy growing rest on building more, but construction has a problem – a critical shortage of labour. Gloucestershire, however, is on the front foot, and the vibes are good.
Dear readers,
Welcome to Monday’s edition of The Raikes Journal. We hope you had a great weekend.
Last week saw us end with a story about a meeting that took place back in 1964 without which we might not have Cheltenham Festival - or indeed any horseracing in the town at all (you can find that story here).
What those around the table on that day did not know was they were creating an organisation that would go on to influence governments, make more than £200 million a year and be a major voice in an industry worth billions of pounds.
That story followed the news of astonishing growth at one of Gloucestershire’s favourite family construction firms, EG Carter, and Monday’s emotional big read about the launch of The Big Space Cancer Appeal.
Today we take a closer look at a story whose headline broke about two weeks back, but as we were otherwise engaged with family matters were unable to look at. As is the way with Raikes we asked some questions, like why should be feeling so good about a significant investment to help the county’s construction industry, and what it says about Gloucestershire. We think it speaks volumes.
Please remember, if you are not a member already we would dearly love you to sign up, add to our growing numbers and help make sustainable this CIC dedicated to championing and reporting on Gloucestershire and its community sustainable.
Have a great week.
Leading the way: A massive congratulations
As this edition has something of an education theme - and especially how education and development can be transformative for individuals, businesses and whole sectors - this story fits very nicely. The picture above is of the 22nd and latest cohort to graduate from leadership development specialist QuoLux’s LEAD™ programme. The Gloucester-headquartered business has worked with many of the county’s best-performing companies to support their senior leadership teams, middle management and future leaders. It’s also one of the Founding Partners that has helped make this very publication possible! We salute everyone above - and name them all below for good measure too!
Pictured above (left to right): Stewart Barnes (QuoLux), Matt Lennard (VCS Alliance), Niall Aldridge (Optimising IT), Mike Glaze (Rappor), Ash Hunt (Stewart Golf), Sam Sibery (Severnside Security), Gareth Hunt (KW Bell Group), Emma Carter (Inflection Point), Dominic Begley (Investacast), Colin Westbury (Kilbery Construction), Mischa Oosthuizen (Taylor & Taylor Care), Andrew Allen (Hike), Gillian Williams (Caring for Communities and People) and Jo Draper (QuoLux).
Charity of the week: The incredible Nelson Trust
Members of the business community are invited to connect with like-minded leaders and listen to two inspirational speakers share their experiences of substantially growing their companies. The event is due to be staged at The Gloucester Growth Hub on Thursday 7 November with all the ticket sales going to The Nelson Trust. On the bill are Deborah Lamplugh, from Forthay Granola, and Deborah Flint, managing director of family business Cinderhill Farm. Azets, Benefact Group, Meta Advisors, and WSP Solicitors are the sponsors who are making the evening happen. The event will raise vital funds for those on their recovery journey from alcohol and substance misuse. Tickets are £15. Find out more here.
Your briefing notes
🖥️ 📖 The Western Gateway will also be on the agenda at one of the many events due to take place as part of The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival this week. Influential Cheltenham cyber cluster CyNam is due to team up with The Western Gateway Cyber & Technology Supercluster on Thursday 10 October to explore the vital role of technology in safeguarding the UK’s future prosperity and resilience. The event will feature a half-day conference, engaging networking opportunities, and a special forward-looking session called Future75 You can find out more here.
💷 💷 💷 There’s just one month left to join the first phase of Stroud Funding, Stroud District Council’s new crowdfunding campaign that has £100,000 available for community groups to improve their local areas. The scheme is open to schools, sports clubs, community organisations and individuals. Projects that align with the council’s priorities, such as those addressing environment and climate change or enhancing community resilience and wellbeing, could receive up to £10,000. Find out more here.
🍽️ TGI Fridays is to close its Cheltenham and Gloucester restaurants. It’s part of wider plans which hit the headlines today to shut 35 of its businesses in total, leading to roughly 1,000 job losses as the company falls into administration. It is understood 51 resturants from its extensive portfolio could be saved by a deal with Breal Capital and Calveton UK, saving almost 2,400 jobs.
* Everything you read on The Raikes Journal is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College, Merrell People and Randall & Payne, our sponsors Hartpury University and Hartpury College, our Founding Members and wonderful paying subscribers.
If you upgrade to paid, you’ll be part of this community interest company too. In an era when local journalism is all but gone, we are dedicated to delivering quality journalism for Gloucestershire, to championing the county, in particular its businesses, charities, education and training providers, and to helping create an even stronger community. If you upgrade to paid you will be able to see past the paywalls on our second and third email editions of the week, that lock all our archive after two weeks and lock our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire, the series that follows the financial fortunes of our biggest firms by turnover. You will be able to comment on our stories too. You’ll be helping make this CIC sustainable.
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How Gloucestershire is solving the construction skills conundrum
So many plans to get our economy growing rest on us building more, but construction has a problem – a critical shortage of skilled labour. Gloucestershire, however, is on the front foot, and the vibes are good.
By Andrew Merrell.
Just how bad is the skills crisis in construction? Looking at the numbers UK plc needs to generate anywhere between 50,000 and 100,000 new skilled staff a year.
Luckily, in Gloucestershire at least, someone has been reading the tealeaves. It’s not going to solve things overnight, but in a year when our new Government is talking about 300,000 new houses a year a lot depends on construction being able to respond.
If it can, in an ideal world, with those new homes will come not just more jobs and more money in the economy and the UK’s coffers, but better health outcomes, better communities, better infrastructure too. The list goes on.
The fortune teller that read those tealeaves ahead of the Government’s pledge was Gloucestershire College – or maybe it just listened to the businesses it already works closely with.
Anyone who follows it on social media will have seen that it has just officially opened its new £5 million construction school in Cheltenham - £1 million of its own money plus £4 million from the Department for Education (DfE), the result of a bid supported by Cheltenham Borough Council.
It’s not like the college is in new territory with construction. It already has construction skills training at its Cheltenham, Forest of Dean and Gloucester campuses. But this is a significant statement.
The new centre will help provide additional training in electrical, plumbing and carpentry.
Matthew Burgess, principal and chief executive of the college, said: “Even before the centre opened, we were the largest provider of construction training in the county by a country mile. It is the single largest occupational area in the college – and we cover a lot of areas.”
But it was bigger than that, said Burgess.
“As well as addressing skills needs, part of our mission is also social mobility. Cheltenham Campus is deliberately placed in an area of regeneration. Our learners can’t always travel so we want to create opportunities for them.
“We’re proud of this facility and it’s for our community – the residents of Cheltenham, the Golden Valley, the businesses of Cheltenham and the whole county to benefit from.”
For some this also breaks any impressions that Cheltenham is all about cyber. Its Cheltenham campus has been winning attention and plaudits since it opened its £3m Advanced Digital Academy (ADA) opened in September 2021.
It’s a centre that today is also home to cyber workspace Hub8, numerous tech-related firms, and has been closely linked to the plans for the nearby Golden Valley Development.
But the new Construction School says very strongly that the college is no one-trick pony, that it is prepared to listen to every sector. That Cheltenham is more than just cyber.
Even the team behind the Golden Valley Development itself, the scheme to build a new business park and hundreds of homes beside GCHQ, has dropped the line about it being all about making the town the UK’s cyber capital and broadened the message to include all other sectors too.
None of it will get built without staff, however.
That may sound a tad dramatic, especially when Beard Construction – which built the new Construction School, delivered the building on time and on budget. But it could all have been so different.
“There is a certain irony that Beard had difficulty in getting the right skilled staff to allow it to actually build a facility which is all about tackling the need for more skilled staff in the industry,” said Kevin Harris, the chief executive of Constructing Excellence South West as well as a board advisor and business mentor with Tandem Consultancy.
The building was designed by Gloucester-headquartered firms architects Roberts Limbrick, and used the skills of quantity surveyors county-based Ward Williams Associates, structural engineers Simpson Associates and fire consultants Helios.
And if you wanted more food for thought about how hard it is to put a new piece into the machine as Gloucestershire College has just done, remember that before Labour came into power targets of 300,000 new homes a year were already common – it’s just we missed the targets by miles every time. The prediction this year is we will be shy of that by 40 per cent.
Read Business West director Ian Mean’s take on the new construction centre here: Building for growth is the name of the game
Just before this year’s general election Bouygues UK, a major construction and property development company, said the shortage of skilled workers was “severe”, calling it “an alarming crisis”.
Its statement coincided with figures from the UK Trade Skills Index 2023 indicating a pressing need for 937,000 new recruits in the construction and trades industry over the next decade.
Over the last five years the sector has lost 300,000 staff – but still employs an estimated 2.15 million people.
A more recent Construction Skills Network (CSN) report suggested around 225,000 new construction workers are needed by 2027 to fill the demand.
It’s a problem that slows down projects and makes labour more expensive. Some say that solving the conundrum is “pivotal to the UK economy”.
Brexit reduced the number of EU nationals in the sector by more than 40 per cent and the estimates are the nation currently has about 50,000 vacancies nationally, with recruitment volumes needing to increase by about 25 per cent over the next five years.
Root causes are said to also be a decline in the numbers embarking on apprentices significantly contributing to the shortage, issues around enticing new talent into the sector, partly because the next generation are not aware of the opportunities, and a failure to attract women into the profession in any great numbers.
While much of the above sounds like doom and gloom, Harris – also a member of Constructing Excellence Gloucestershire - is among those who shares Burgess’s optimism and is convinced the college’s bold move will help force change.
“This is more than just a building. It is a hub of opportunity. It’s about modern plumbing, electrical and carpentry, it’s about helping students meet the technical requirements necessary,” said Harris, enthusiastically.
“But the benefits extend beyond that. It will not only lead to rewarding careers but help support economic growth in our region. And growth will help attract more investment an create even more jobs.
“It is very forward thinking. It would be easy for them to keep the construction focus on Gloucester campus, where its main construction hub is, but bringing it to Cheltenham extends its reach and open up the industry to even more people.”
The new school will allow the college to help train an extra 250 construction students a year.
How many does the county need? We don’t really know.
According to the college in 2021 construction employed 33,000 people in Gloucestershire, over 5000 in Cheltenham and 2.6 million nationally.
What the investment by Gloucestershire College also does it underline the ability of further education to forge relationships with its business community, listen and act in a way that can help drive our economy.
Will Abbott is a partner at county accountants Randall & Payne and a governor at the college.
“We know that for high education learners will move away to different parts of the country to be at a university that meets their aspirations,” said Abbott, who also cut the ribbon to officially open the college’s new school at the Hester’s Way site.
“For FE learners or for employers needing to recruit and train apprentices that just isn’t a choice and so largely they are in the lap of how good and responsive that college is.
“A vibrant and successful college is essential for young people to have meaningful career options available and employers a pipeline of talent.
“Gloucestershire College has a very different profile to most colleges in the sector with work with employers dominating our provision.”
He added: “I think the college has long punched above its weight in terms of securing investment to train people into the jobs our employers need – and meaningful roles in the critical industries identified in the Gloucestershire Economic Strategy such as construction, advanced engineering and digital.
“Things like the investments in this construction centre in Cheltenham, the cyber training facilities, the EV training centre in Gloucester demonstrate not just a commitment but a talent for providing young people and employers with amazing facilities and opportunities.”
The EV training centre facilities at its Gloucester campus were unveiled in March 2023 – an investment of half a million pounds.
The new construction school will allow plumbing, electrical and carpentry to be taught alongside courses in construction multi-skills, property maintenance, groundworks, design, surveying and planning, and construction and the built environment.
The college is also keen to underline how this dovetails in neatly to its drive to teach sustainable approaches to construction through the curriculum.
Students will learn not just their core discipline but about smart technologies, renewable energy systems like solar PV, ground-source heat pumps and EV charging, eco-friendly construction techniques, waste minimisation, water conservation techniques, sustainable design and environmental regulations.
Even the building’s own electricity comes from the campus solar generation and battery storage facilities.