Firms urged to offer placements as part of Construction Youth Trust and Building campaign
Building has partnered with charity the Construction Youth Trust to launch a campaign aimed at attracting school pupils into construction careers.
The Experience Construction initiative is encouraging employers to partner with the Construction Youth Trust (CYT) to offer life-changing work experience placements.
Building today is encouraging employers to register their interest in offering placements on our website at building.co.uk/experience. We are also calling on firms to help the CYT compile a database of construction roles that students can browse.
Multiple surveys this year have highlighted a chronic and worsening skills shortage in construction and an urgent need for the sector to attract new talent. For instance, the Construction Skills Network Forecast at the start of this year predicted the sector will need to recruit an additional 230,000 workers by 2020.
The launch of Experience Construction comes as hundreds of thousands of pupils consider career options after receiving their A-level and GCSE results.
We need to act as an industry to show children just what they are missing out on
Stephen Gee, John Rowan and Partners
The results once again showed a lack of pupils taking science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects (see story below) – the sort of qualifications that equip students for a wide variety of construction careers.
Meanwhile, research published this week by consultant John Rowan and Partners and shared exclusively with Building, reveals schools still do not provide pupils with adequate information about construction careers, according to undergraduate students.
The survey of 40 students on construction courses found more than four-fifths (83%) believe there is a need for more awareness in schools of careers in the construction industry.
More than half (60%) of the students, when at school, also wanted to be better engaged with by construction companies and have access to information on different careers within the industry.
One student told the consultant: “The first thing that comes to people’s mind when talking about construction within schools is putting brick on brick. If they knew about various roles and the opportunities in the construction industry, it would be more appealing.”
John Rowan and Partners is a launch partner of the Experience Construction programme.
Explaining his firm’s support, Stephen Gee, the consultant’s managing partner, writes in Building this week (see page 29): “We need to act as an industry to show children and teachers who do not have access to the sector through friends and family, just what they are missing out on.”
To sign up to offer work experience placements click here
3 Readers' comments