Government moves to counter UK construction skills gap

The UK Government is planning a major move in conjunction with the UK construction industry and engineering sector to tackle the country's widening construction skills gap.

According to The Guardian newspaper, British Innovation Minister John Denham is to launch a fund to tackle serious skills shortages in a number of industries including the UK construction sector.

He will hold talks with employers in June to discuss how government and industry can prevent major skills gaps in finance, construction, engineering, IT and science up to 2014. He says Britain needs to train nearly two million workers in these industries to remain competitiveness on a global scale.

Denham plans to earmark specific training funds for these industries and has also allocated £200m in capital spending over the next three years to support specialist facilities for training.
UK Government research indicates that, between 2004 and 2014, an estimated 650,000 construction workers , 300,000 science and engineering workers and 500,000 IT workers will be required.

Denham said there would be a wave of demand for skilled construction workers and engineers to build nuclear power stations and green power generators. Construction workers and engineers are also essential for the construction of homes and to deliver big UK infrastructure projects such as Crossrail, and for new colleges and schools.

Energy industry leaders have warned the government that a lack of skilled engineers and project managers could jeopardise the building of a new generation of nuclear power stations since many workers were trained as the previous ones were built and are coming up to retirement.