Contractors tackle skills gap by taking training on site

Last November, the National Skills Academy for Construction was launched at the Bovis Lend Lease Bishopsgate site in the City of London.

The Bovis site and a Balfour Beatty schools project in Manchester (see below), are the first of 30 planned academies to be rolled out across the UK in the next five years. The idea is to use site-based, project specific training to encourage local employment on construction sites.

Val Lowman, Bovis Lend Lease’s UK community development manager, who has been closely involved with industry training body ConstructionSkills on the project’s evolution says employer-led training is the only way to get it right: “Things are constantly changing on site, new materials and methods of construction are being adopted all the time. But things are not constantly changing in colleges of further education. They’re not moving fast enough to keep up with industry.”

Lowman adds that although the aim of the academies is for employers to take control of training, colleges and universities will still be part of the process. “Colleges are great at theory but when it comes to practical learning, there’s no comparison with site. So the National Skills Academy is not an alternative and it’s not a criticism. But the industry must acknowledge that site is where we need to continue learning.”

Some projects will have their own classrooms, others will use mobile training units or local colleges. The academies will train tradespeople and professionals.

The industry must acknowledge that site is where we need to continue learning.

Val Lowman Bovis Lend Lease

High throughput

The Bishopsgate Academy hopes to train 1,000 people over the next two years. As well as Bovis, client British Land, the Learning Skills Council, the London Development Agency, Jobcentre Plus and ConstructionSkills will all be involved. ConstructionSkills predicts that 11,700 recruits will be needed every year until 2010 in the south east alone.

Lowman believes that the academies will solve the problem of students who train at construction colleges but don’t then work in the industry. “People pass through college then when they get to site, they think, ‘well, I don’t really like this’, because they haven’t been adequately prepared. It’s a waste of government money. The academies will bring people to site far more quickly and give them the skills they need for the job they’re actually doing.” 

• In a separate initiative, Bovis Lend Lease is planning to directly employ workers with poor literacy levels to educate them. It is setting up a not-for-profit company called Be Onsite, which will be launched later this year.

Lowman said: “Every contracting firm knows they have poorly educated workers based on their sites but as most main contractors don’t employ them directly, and neither, probably, do their first tier supply chain partners, it’s difficult to identify their training needs. Be Onsite, however, will employ these people directly, making their training requirements Bovis’s responsibility.”