News

More Qualifications & Essential Skills Training Needed in Local Construction Industry

Less than half of local construction workers have construction related qualifications and almost 1.5 of them feel they would benefit from training in Essential Skills (Numeracy, Literacy & IT). These shocking results highlighted in recent research of 100 NI workers by CITB NI (Workforce Mobility and Skills Survey 2015).

These facts highlight that training is more and more relevant in developing the people that work within the construction industry and with only 2% qualified to Level 1 and 12% qualified to a Level 4 there is a lot scope to get the industry qualified or upskilled to a higher level.
 
It has been widely cited that construction has an ageing workforce and it is significant that in this survey 17% of workers surveyed had no more than 5 years construction experience in comparison to 36% who had excess of 20 years’ experience. Promoting construction as a career choice to younger people is more important now than ever as Northern Ireland is beginning to show signs of a levelling out of the economic decline with a return to very modest growth forecast and employers are already citing skills shortages as a major concern.
 
It is significant to note that whilst we are aware of a large number of contractors working on construction projects in Great Britain a high proportion of the workforce surveyed (77%) had worked in Northern Ireland for their entire construction career which was higher than the UK average of 61% with only 1% of the local workforce being imported from other nations or regions.
 
Barry Neilson, Chief Executive CITB NI said, “Training is good for business and good for the construction industry. The results of this survey illustrate that training and qualifications are important for the future development of the industry as skills are a key driver of growth, performance and prosperity. Our aim is to develop a qualified and competent workforce within the NI construction industry and to help encourage and support training to ensure the right skills are in place for the opportunities growth in the industry will bring.   We are looking forward to the future with a confident and more capable workforce able to embrace the opportunities arising as our industry regenerates.”
 
For more information on this survey and other research log on to the research and development section of our website.