Roofing

Training to be a Professional Roofer
Livia Williams, Roofing Industry Alliance Training Manager, assesses the skill needs of the UK
roofing industry and shows how all roofing operatives can improve as Professional Roofers
through training and qualifications.
Over the last 12 months, UK financial reports have been delivering
some encouraging statistics on the economic recovery and
construction industry growth, and the roofing industry is
endorsing this. We, indeed, hear that roofing contractors across
the UK have got full order books for the next 12 months. While this
does sounds very encouraging and demonstrates real signs of
business growth, roofing contractors are also facing a massive
challenge in finding ‘good roofers’ to carry out the work on site.
And that leads on to a very interesting debate that the roofing
industry has been having for many years. What is the roofing
contractor’s definition of a ‘good roofer’ and how can we get our
operatives trained to become ‘Professional Roofers’?
The concept of a professional roofer will include the need to be
fully qualified, fully competent, have up-to-date health & safety
training and hold the minimum blue CSCS Skilled Worker Card.
Roofing supervisors and managers would also need to have a
Level 3 Site Supervisor qualification or Level 6 Construction Site
Operations, the SSSTS or SMSTS and the Gold Supervisor CSCS
Card or Black Managers CSCS Card.
Generally speaking, the roofing industry’s approach to training is
reactive as opposed to proactive. Much training activity is driven
by the requirements of main contractors, PQQs or health & safety
quality systems like CHAS and ISO. During busy times, roofing
employers have been facing a big dilemma of how to get their
operatives trained and CSCS carded without facing delays and
penalties onsite. Unfortunately, this approach to training has had
disastrous consequences for the skilled roofing labour market, and
without a collective corporate responsibility of investing in and
training the workforce, there will never be a solution to reducing
the shortage of skilled labour in the UK roofing industry.
CSCS statistics on the number of roofing operatives who hold the
Blue CSCS Skilled worker card across all roofing disciplines are
disappointing. The figures will become even more worrying when
all the CSCS cards issued to the roofing sector under the old
‘Grandfather rights’ rules can only be renewed only if you have
achieved a minimum Level 2 roofing qualification. It is now time
that the roofing industry acknowledges that we are operating on a
knife-edge. Without taking immediate action by investing in
training, developing and qualifying our roofing operatives,
supervisors and managers, we will have little alternative but to
continue to turn down millions of pounds worth of work,
encourage a ‘mercenary’ culture amongst roofing operatives, and,
ultimately, obstruct future growth for the roofing industry.
Specialist roof training in the UK has been undergoing a complete
restructuring due to a continuous change in qualifications and
competencies and a need for a multi-skilled workforce, economic factors
and product innovations coming into the market.
Since January 2014, the Roofing Industry Alliance (RIA) has taken an
active role to develop a National Roof Training Strategy by coordinating
roof training in all UK regions and ensuring that we are all focusing on
the ultimate goal – qualifying the workforce.
For many years, roof training delivery was very fragmented; each region
had done their ‘own thing’ without understanding what was happening
in other regions. There were a lot of missed opportunities for sharing
best practice and funding for running projects nationally. The lack of
coordination and strategy is reflected in the levels of roof training today.
Driving Force
The Roofing Industry Alliance brings a new approach: indicating how
specialist training should be developed and delivered intelligently and
strategically through assessment and evaluation. Through its integrated
t
Page 12
Enquiry 16