July/ August 2022

Skills gap: Comment
INVESTING IN THE FUTURE
As an ageing workforce retires, the industry’s skill gap is set to widen in the next few years. Kurt
Greatrex, Dekko Window Systems’ Sales Director, tells Total Fabricator why he believes that with
hard work and the right investments, we’ll rise to the challenge…
The UK construction industry is a huge part of
the national economy, generating over £110
billion a year and accounting for around 7%
of the country’s GDP.
But it’s long been known that the industry
is experiencing an acute skills shortage that
remains one of the biggest problems the sector
has had to tackle.
Today, in a post-pandemic market, the industry’s
workforce has been stretched like never before,
further highlighting the gap.
Certainly a lot has changed over the past two
years, but one thing that’s remained is the
growing gap in the market of skilled workers.
Contributing factors
The biggest reason for the shortage is an ageing
workforce. According to the Office for National
Statistics, over 20% of UK tradespeople are aged
over 50, while 15% are in their 60s.
Above top: Sales Director Kurt Greatrex
Above: Dekko’s newest apprentice Liam Birch
The problem is, as this generation starts to retire,
the same percentage of younger people aren’t
entering these professions.
In fact, a YouGov survey shows that just 3% of
people aged 18 to 24 are searching for jobs in the
construction industry.
School leavers are generally pursuing university
degrees in the hope of lucrative careers, often
forgetting that you can actually earn quite a good
living in construction and fenestration.
Brexit is another big reason behind the growing
industry skills gap.
According to the Labour Force Survey, 8.2% of
the UK construction workforce are EU nationals,
many of whom have returned home following the
UK’s departure.
There are also many workers who returned home
during the height of the pandemic, and have not
since been able to return due to new stringent
immigration laws.
36 T F JULY/AUGUST 2022
CONNECTING THE WINDOW, DOOR & ROOF FABRICATION SUPPLY CHAIN