A million young people are not in work or training, but the building engineering sector is crying out for more talent. BESA’s director of competence and compliance Jill Nicholls* outlines how working on both problems together could help to save a whole generation.
Alan Milburn, the former government minister who authored the recent report into Neets (16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training) said that rescuing this ‘lost generation’ was “more than an economic crisis – it is a moral one”.
His report, commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions, found that six in 10 Neets have never had a job, but that 84% do want to work or be in training but are “finding the door of opportunity closed”.
Entry-level jobs have sharply declined by around 1.6 million over the past 20 years, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which added that apprenticeship starts among young people have fallen by 35% since 2017.
This costs the country £125bn every year in lost economic potential which is more than we spend on education.
At the same time, BESA has taken a deep dive into the building engineering sector’s skills challenges. Our research points to several areas where we could – and should – take advantage of this ready-made pool of labour – helping to solve two problems at once.
Fully digital
Our industry has a growing problem with adopting new and emerging technologies, but Neets are a fully digital generation – they have never known anything else. So, let’s solve our problem and make a dent in all that currently under-exploited potential at the same time.
‘Newish’ technologies like heat pumps, smart building systems, and energy‑efficient retrofit solutions are radically reshaping the building services engineering (BSE) skills landscape, alongside low carbon materials and sustainable design practices, according to our new Labour Market Intelligence (LMI) study carried out for BESA by Pye Tait Consulting.
Lack of digital ‘literacy’ was cited as a skills problem by many employers in the survey and flagged as a potentially serious issue for longer-term business survival.
The cost of training and an ageing workforce struggling to keep up to date were cited as the two most important reasons why employers fail to plug skills gaps with competition from other (often more glamorous) sectors and a “lack of awareness” of BSE and its opportunities seen as powerful reasons for failure to attract enough candidates for skilled roles.
“Post‑pandemic priorities around ventilation hygiene and smart air systems are also influencing design and maintenance approaches,” the report adds. “These developments are changing the nature of job roles, the type of work undertaken, and the skills required to maintain a competent future workforce.”
However, many Neets do not see our sector as a destination for them – they don’t see the opportunities and the rewards – and there are thousands of employers who are struggling to invest for the long-term in capturing their talent. Now is the time to bring these two groups together.
Our LMI study showed that most firms in our sector are struggling to recruit across most roles but 75% say the biggest issue is recruiting for apprentices and trainee positions.
Strongest demand is expected to be for labourers (37%), apprentices (33%) and trainees (30%) in the next few years – and many report problems accessing suitable training courses to help them develop a future workforce.
Most respondents reported a good level of skills in so-called ‘traditional’ areas but find it hard to recruit people capable of working with emerging disciplines like building controls, energy systems, heat pumps, ductwork and ventilation – all of which are becoming increasingly important.
Employers call for greater and more relevant training provision and better promotion of the sector with trade bodies expected to lead these efforts. As our current workforce ages and finds it increasingly difficult to upskill to work with new systems, we should be feeding in more young talent at entry level who can take these new approaches in their stride.
Over the next three years, our employers predict further growth in deployment of heat pumps and smart heat networks. After that, the rise of AI-driven design and increasingly ‘smart’ and energy efficient technologies are expected to reshape job roles.
Workforce expansion
Companies also expect the total workforce to expand by 11% in the next five years with installation and maintenance roles standing out as the area of greatest anticipated growth due to technology changes. How can we keep up with that rate of growth without a whole new generation of talent?
All of this should be pointing towards a huge opportunity for Neets. This age group are fully digitally literate, and many are also invested in the future of the planet – or they certainly should be as they are likely to be on it for longer – so can be sold the idea of making an environmental and social difference through improving the built environment.
We hear so much about the negative aspects of young people’s engagement with the digital world but there are also huge benefits yet to be harnessed – and this could also be transformational for mental health and social cohesion.
But getting that message over to this generation is the key and that is where collaboration with government can really pay dividends. Shortly before starting on the LMI study, BESA also contributed to the first industry-led comprehensive skills plan for our sector.
Working with our partners in the Engineering and Building Services Skills Alliance (EBSSA) we helped to produce a Strategic Skills Plan for our sector, which exposed the depth of our skills challenges with over 50% hard-to-fill vacancies and declining apprenticeship starts.
The Plan clearly identifies that, if these issues are not addressed, they threaten future capacity to deliver on the Government’s housing and infrastructure targets, as well as the transition to net zero. The LMI findings will also lead to the commissioning of a skills plan specifically for the BSE sector and funded by the education charity ESTTL.
Now the Milburn Report has clearly laid out the scale of the Neet issue and, crucially, that the vast majority of this potentially ‘lost generation’ are keen to be working – not just for economic reasons but also to improve their sense of self-worth and purpose.
A concerted campaign to promote opportunities for young people in this, and other economically and socially critical sectors, is needed now to solve two of the UK’s most pressing problems: Shortage of opportunities for Neets and looming skills shortages for built environment employers.
Solving our industry’s problems, can also help to save a whole generation.
BESA’s Labour Market Intelligence report is available for download here.