Greater collaboration between house builders and their subcontractors in the UK is essential if the industry is to address its skills shortage and continue to increase home building, says a new report.
The report, which is the first major piece of work to be undertaken for the new Home Building Skills Partnership (HBSP), a pan industry body set up by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and Home Builders Federation (HBF) to ensure the industry has the skills it needs to deliver, says that providing subcontractors with better visibility on future work, prompt payment and sharing training resources will help enable them to grow and so increase industry capacity.
It points out that whilst housing output has increased by around one third in just two years to around 155,000 homes a year, following five years of general decline, the country is still some way short of the estimated 230,000 homes a year required.
This means that tens of thousands more skilled workers will be required and with the industry reliant on subcontract labour, the report says that to achieve this, house builders need to shift from a ‘procurement’ to a ‘development’ approach to its supply chain.
The report is based on research conducted with 20 large UK house builders and 204 subcontractors, who in total employ up to 150,000 workers and it reveals that two thirds of subcontractors want to grow through house building.
It also points out that builders and subcontractors have mutual objectives in terms of profitable work, positive reputations, safe and productive sites and 57% of subcontractors are planning to increase direct employment in the next year.
However, only 50% of subcontractors are confident they can meet house builders needs and critical shortages include ground workers, plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers, roofers and painters and it is feared that without greater collaboration supply chain capacity increases will be limited.
The report makes a series of recommendations including the need for house builders to give greater visibility to their future pipeline of work at regional levels, to reduce the half year and year end pressures, to pay promptly, to make the training infrastructure they have in place available for subcontractors and to consider mandating subcontractor training.
It suggests that subcontractors need to proactively engage with house builders and the HBSP over workloads, recruitment and training and calls on the HBSP and CITB to take the recommendations in the report forward and develop solutions that will lead to increased cooperation and more joined up training processes that will allow the industry to grow, and in particular, increase the number of apprentices.
‘The industry faces a huge challenge in the years ahead as it looks to attract and train the people required to build the homes the country needs. The relationship between home builders and subcontractors is absolutely critical in terms of how the industry recruits and delivers and it is imperative we work more closely together,’ said John Tutte, chair of the HBSP.
‘The report provides some key insight into how we can collaborate more effectively to deliver improved training processes and ultimately increase capacity. We will now work closely with industry stakeholders to act on the recommendations as part of our wider drive to tackle the skills challenge we face,’ he added.
The recommendations are a critical first step to tackling the skills challenge in home building, according to Steve Radley, director of policy at CITB.
‘The new partnership and the evidence it has brought together offers the best opportunity in years to foster much closer working in the sector, which will improve skills, help companies become more productive and cost effective, and ultimately help us build the homes we need,’ he pointed out.
