Can we build it? No – because Britain may not have enough workers
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/02/can-we-build-it-no-because-britain-may-not-have-enough-workers
Posted by F0urLeafCl0ver
Can we build it? No – because Britain may not have enough workers
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/02/can-we-build-it-no-because-britain-may-not-have-enough-workers
Posted by F0urLeafCl0ver
26 Comments
Already been discussions of a four day week for construction workers.
It’s hard work, ever changing work, in terrible conditions. The work needs to be lightened and adapted. It can’t continue the way it currently works as is clear by the fact so many don’t want to do it.
It’s also worth noting that 10% of the construction workers force are migrant workers.
Doesn’t have enough workers because there’s no point hiring people when they’d have to sit and do nothing for 5 years waiting for planning permission…
Makes me wonder how much schools had a role to play in this, I don’t know what other schools were like, but my upper school only allowed people to do design tech/hands on labor classes if they weren’t taking 3 sciences or extended maths classes. Essentially only people the school thought were fools. I was right on the border line but wanted to do DT/woodwork etc. However because I was predicted a C in maths and was told to do all 3 sciences, it was out of the question for me. Sure I could have gone and done a btec after school if it’s something I really wanted to do, but I’m sure many other people would have been more interested if fairly given the opportunity to fulfill these kind of roles in the future. Maybe my school was just cost cutting, maybe it’s a national thing. I just assume it’s a national thing.
A binary choice here for the Government
– Stop letting kids choose what they want when they leave school, allocate them a career path and punish them if they fail to follow it
Or
– Allow the employment market to function as an actual market and, if you have to pay 100k a year to people to wipe pensioners arses to attract them into that job then that’s what you have to pay.
Hmm. Headline says `may not have enough workers’. CONTENT of the article including interviews with industry representatives suggesting they are confident they will have enough workers.
Typical clickbait
Can someone explain (genuinely) why after Brexit, that Eastern Europeans didn’t just apply for visas to work in the UK?
I appreciate there was huge drop off after Brexit came into force; but surely builders, electricians etc could just apply and come over and work?
UK should have never gone service based it’s caused so much issues financially industrial evolution era was Britain’s glory days
I’d be interested to know how much of this is due to wage compression from the minimum wage. It looks like the minimum wage is now around £24k a year, full time, and the average builder’s salary looks to be around £30k-£35k.
Is it really worth the time to develop those skills, as well as working a hard labour job in pretty bad conditions, for an extra £650 a month, after tax (assuming a £35k salary)?
Don’t worry: all the ill and disabled people that are going to have their benefits cut will soon fill all those vacancies in the construction sector!
This is bit putting the cart before the horse, if there is demand for work, companies will hire more builders, no company is going to have extra builders for no reason, they have just enough for projects, if you signal to companies you want to have more building projects, they start recruiting
None of the migrants I’ve seen around my hometown who’ve suddenly appeared within the last 24 months look like construction workers.
Government need to offer trade apprenticeships to adults. Not everyone is lucky enough to get an apprenticeship off their dad or dad’s mate at 16.
Course we haven’t got enough workers. The industry was gutted of good workers alongside the standards. It now pays peanuts for useless labourers who have no real interest in doing the job or doing it well.
If it was trade based again, and paid accordingly of course we would get people. But we are a shit america and want to pay poverty wages, whilst prices go through the roof, and we expect people to go running to do these jobs.
Maybe Brexit will get reversed when people are so disinterested in working for poverty wages that they’ve got no one left to exploit so they’ll import eastern Europeans to do it again.
A construction boom, improving transport links, building infrastructure are all commendable but we’ve spent about 50 years decimating that sector so it’s no surprise we can’t deliver.
In the last couple of decades we’ve moved from companies providing apprentiships and training young people to do the work, to people having to finance thier own training as companies won’t do it.
Companies have got complacent expecting to be able to just employ people already qualified and dropped thier training programs.
And, it’s done right accross multiple industries. Why are there no workers? We don’t train any while expecting young people to fund thier own training when they’ve had little opportunity to save for it.
This is just another NIMBY talking point thrown about to sidetrack and delay any attempt to build anything in this country. It is honestly infuriating to see repeated time and time again.
If we don’t have enough workers, start training more, now. Throwing up their arms and saying nothing can be done, because we currently lack the workforce is like some child throwing a tantrum and giving up because it couldn’t master a new skill immediately. It’s actually a really pathetic take.
I realise the article isn’t actually taking the side of the blockers, but why use that stupid headline.
We could always train more workers, I’m going to guess were just going to import them though which adds to the housing shortage.
Very depressing rewrite of the bob the builder theme these days
There 20+ years of schools saying that being a builder or a mechanic was for the thick kids.
And a decade of imported labour pushing out new comers.
(Why hire a teenageer when you can get cheap skilled and mobile adults?)
I’ve said multiple times – we need to invest in more modern building practices.
For example pre-fabricated housing, it has come a long way since WW2, this is what they look like nowadays [https://www.huf-haus.com/en-uk/dream-house/](https://www.huf-haus.com/en-uk/dream-house/) [https://www.dan-wood.co.uk/en/gallery](https://www.dan-wood.co.uk/en/gallery)
Also when you manufacture a house in a factory the weather doesn’t matter, hours of daylight doesn’t matter and you get other efficiency savings. I know Polish (and other CEE country) people who’ve built themselves summer homes back in Poland etc., house is made in a factory, arrives on the back of a truck and is assembled and ready to use in a couple of days.
Too many engineers not enough workers in my experience.
I’m a surveyor I tell people where to put stuff, I have 5 supervisors I have to submit reports to weekly.
I’ve only ever seen 2 of them on site, I’m not entirely sure what the other 3 actually do beyond tick a box on excel to say I’ve submitted my report.
Not an expert, but could prefab homes not be far more efficient and reduced the need for as much labour?
Since we’re badly needing to improve the efficiency of homes, wouldn’t SIPs be a good option moving forward?
When you spend over a decade putting down manual work, pushing tech work and glamorising it is anyone shocked?
Hell I remember years ago wanting to learn a trade and having people try to push me towards something tech related (both family and work coahes).
Just let people build what they actually want and demand will skyrocket. Then supply will adjust, builder workers will be paid more then work more, their additional worked hours will be more valuable. Additional people will join this industry workforce. Training centre will open. All of this if you actually let people build what is actually wanted, then money will flow into the building sector.
We need to make apprenticeships affordable and available even to graduates.
If you invest in training, better working conditions and higher wages then you will get people.
If being a tradesman paid enough I’d stay and keep doing it. But it doesn’t, so I’m currently in the final year of my masters transitioning out of my industry.
Simple as that. Want people to do a tough, shitty job? Pay them well.
As for 4 day working, you can pretty much implement it with a minimal loss in productivity. Lee current pay level, split your workforce in half, have one work Mon-Thurs, the other work Tues-Fri and alternate every two weeks. It’s more work for managers, will likely require slightly more personnel overall but it’s a simple solution and could provide more attraction into the trades.