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Breaking down barriers to great careers in construction

The Construction Youth Trust plays a vital role in guiding disadvantaged young people towards fulfilling careers in the built environment. 

Christine Townley

Antony Oliver speaks to the charity’s chief executive Christine Townley about the challenges and opportunities of a post-recession industry.

As workload across the UK public and private infrastructure sector continues to build, demand for the best talent to plan, design and deliver this programme has never been so high.

You might therefore conclude that this rising economy must surely boost the sector’s attraction and so make it easier to find a next generation of construction workers. 

Not necessarily the case, according to Christine Townley, chief executive of skills charity the Construction Youth Trust.  

“There are still huge barriers to working in the construction industry. For young people it is about understanding what opportunities there are in construction. Schools still don’t really understand the industry or the range of career opportunities.” Christin Townley

“There are certainly huge skills gaps but that doesn’t necessarily make it easier to get young people into work,” explains Townley. She points out too often the industry still finds itself battling to find the skills today rather than investing training for tomorrow.

“We should have been getting ready for this upturn years ago,” she says. “Everyone wants to do something today but they haven’t prepared for today – that is the challenge. Construction is one of the only major sectors of the economy where the number of apprentices recruited went down last year.”

It is, of course, a worryingly familiar story to anyone who has lived through past boom and bust cycles in the industry. Failure to invest in training through the bad times leaves the industry struggling to capitalise when better times come along.

One obvious solution is to widen the pool from which the industry fishes for its home grown talent. 

The Construction Industry Youth Trust was set up in 1961 by the industry specifically to help create educational centres to teach construction skills and so boost the numbers entering the profession from across a broad spectrum of society.

Then, as now, there was a clear feeling that the pool of talent from which both the professionals and trade skills were drawn from was too limited, with little careers guidance or training available to draw young people in.

This article first appeared in KPMG's latest Focus digital app for infrastructure building and construction which is now available and tackles the pressing issue of skill shortages in the industry. To download the app click here.

Since then, the Trust’s activities have broadened. But it remains focussed around the central goal of supporting “young people whose journey to work may be challenging due to barriers such as financial circumstances, lack of awareness of opportunities, low self-esteem, gender or ethnicity”.

The trust has two key programmes with which to help overcome these barriers to joining and so boost recruitment in the industry: Budding Brunels which targets professional careers paths and Budding Builders which focuses on the trade.

Budding Brunels target better careers guidance in schools as a means to inspiring young people towards building better futures for themselves. Budding Builders focusses on supporting NEETS (ie providing those not in education, employment or training to have a taste of the trades and help broker placements and jobs).

“There are still huge barriers to working in the construction industry,” explains Townley. “For young people it is about understanding what opportunities there are in construction. Schools still don’t really understand the industry or the range of career opportunities.”

Breaking down any preconceived ideas about the industry harboured by teachers and careers advisers as well as by potential recruits, is critical, explains Townley. 

“We should have been getting ready for this upturn years ago. Everyone wants to do something today but they haven’t prepared for today – that is the challenge." Christine Townley

“You don’t necessarily have to be academic to get into construction. The outdoors nature of the business and the challenge of building something is an exciting prospect that needs to be got over to young people,” she says. 

“But you do have to have motivation and the right attitude and if we can support them in their first day or week I think that these things make a difference,” she adds. “As a society we tend to value cerebral activities and I think that there needs to be more celebration of the broader range of crafts in construction.”

 

Partnership models

The Trust operates with industry partners working on local construction projects and helps by facilitating outreach programmes in challenging areas, typically working with schools with high numbers of free school meal pupils.

The Duke of Gloucester's Awards - 2015 winners here: Construction Youth Trust rewards the next generation of professionals

Once an area is selected, groups of around 30 pupils with an interest in Sceince Technology, Engineering and Maths subjects are identified in local schools and offered a three day introductory programme to gain a flavour of the different careers available.

This programme will culminate with around ten being offered two week placements and for some this will lead to longer term employment or sponsorship through university. 

“It is about targeting the group that don’t know about the industry as a career path,” explains Townley. “The demand from schools is growing - perhaps because they are now being assessed by Ofsted on their careers advice. So we are now getting much better engagement from schools.”

The partnerships with industry are critical to ensuring that the work experience programmes present an inspiring view of careers both for potential professionals via the Budding Brunel scheme and the trades via Bussing Builders.

“It is about targeting the group that don’t know about the industry as a career path. The demand from schools is growing - perhaps because they are now being assessed by Ofsted on their careers advice. So we are now getting much better engagement from schools.” Christin Townley.

Being allied closely to the big infrastructure projects is one clear way to leverage success and the charity is already talking to HS2, TfL, Crossrail, and Network Rail to put together a Budding Brunels programme at Old Oak Common. 

In reality, Townley says that its Budding Brunels programmes are generally funded by larger firms in the industry as they usually seek to employ larger numbers of professions. In contrast most Budding Builders schemes are more often funded by trusts and foundation or by the public sector – a situation Townley wants to change.

Regardless, boosting partners across the board is a priority for Townley as she attempts to expand the charities activities to meet the growing need for skills.

“A partner could be a corporate partner such as KPMG who helps to raise our profile or it could be a community organisation that can help access young people,” explains Townley.

“Equally our partners might be a local authority such as Southwark Council that helps by providing space to provide training in the heart of community or it might be a construction company such as Wilmott Dixon who gives staff time and resources to paint a community centre,” she adds.

“To get involved just make contact.”

If you would like to contact Antony Oliver about this, or any other story, please email antony.oliver@infrastructure-intelligence.com.

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