AN INVESTMENT of £283 million has been pledged by the government to train the next generation of workers, but experts have warned it is “too little, too late”.
More builders, coders and engineers of the future will be able to access the life-changing opportunity to gain the skills they will need for their careers, as £283 million is invested to help them meet surging demand for homegrown skilled workers, the government has announced.
Around £100 million of this funding will go to mayors and local leaders to boost capacity specifically in construction courses to address growing college waiting lists across the country and help achieve the government’s goal to train 60,000 additional construction workers to build 1.5 million homes by the end of the Parliament.
Metro mayors and local leaders will be given the power to decide how they use the rest of the funding to boost capacity in colleges ahead of an expected 67,000 extra 16 and 17-year-olds entering post-16 education by 2028.
Too little, too late
Michelle Lawson, Director at Fareham-based Lawson Financial, criticised the investment.
She said: “More hot air from the ‘Too Little, Too Late’ party. The problems we have are now, not 2028 or 2030. Too much focus has been on being world-beating or world-leading in everything else apart from home-grown talent in our own children. Apprenticeships are rare, employers are under the cosh with costs and are often too busy to train the youth.
“Schemes such as the YTS across all trades should be paramount to get our children into the workplace. The economy is literally on a knife-edge – there is no time to wait.”
Rohit Parmar-Mistry, Founder at Burton-on-Trent-based Pattrn Data, said the news won’t fix the economy in the UK.
He continued: “This announcement assumes the barrier to a better economy is a lack of skilled workers. It isn’t. It’s a lack of incentive for companies to actually build. Blaming the housing crisis on a lack of workers is a convenient fiction.
“While investing in skills for builders, coders and engineers is great for individuals, let’s be honest: this won’t fix the UK economy or the housing shortage on its own. The real bottleneck isn’t labour, it’s land-banking. Major developers have hoarded land with planning permission for years to artificially constrain supply.
“Why would they rush to build 1.5 million homes? Flooding the market would tank prices and obliterate profits. They control the tap to keep profits high, not to house the nation.
“Will this fix the economy? Unlikely. You can train an army of new staff, but if the market incentives remain focused on scarcity rather than volume, those workers will be idle and unemployed.”
Ambitious targets
Kundan Bhaduri, Entrepreneur, Investor and Landlord at London-based The Kushman Group, doubts the plans will be a success.
He added: “This government loves to announce ambitious targets, then scramble to build the infrastructure that should have existed decades earlier, yet fall face down at the first hurdle.
“Ministers are promising to train 60,000 additional construction workers to deliver 1.5 million homes, which sounds impressive until you realise this represents roughly 40 workers per thousand homes in a sector already hemorrhaging talent to early retirement and regulatory fatigue.
“The real question is not whether colleges can expand capacity, but whether young people will choose construction careers in an economy that treats housebuilders and landlords like essential pariahs while celebrating financial services that produce the magic money tree.
“Who is going to employ these newly minted builders when there is no profit to be made in building millions of new homes?”
AI infrastructure
Colette Mason, Author & AI Consultant at London-based Clever Clogs AI, said AI infrastructure was making the housing crisis worse.
She continued: “Data centres are hoovering up construction workers faster than we can train them, and they’re paying better. Private industrial work (including the centres) grew 6.4%, yet public housing output declined 7.8% in Q4 2024.
“We’ve got 94 data centre projects worth £36 billion competing for the same skilled contractors, electricians, and site managers we need for 1.5 million homes. Data centres pay more, and don’t require navigating glacial planning hell. When you can earn more installing AI infrastructure instead of wiring flats, where do you think the talent flows?
“Are we training 60,000 construction workers to build homes, or are we accidentally training them to build the digital infrastructure that’s outbidding housing at every turn?”
Housing crisis
Kate Underwood, Founder at Southampton-based Kate Underwood HR and Training, worries that there is a lack of communication at the heart of government.
She added: “In the last few weeks, we’ve had two different departments chucking money at basically the same problem… and it still feels like nobody’s sharing a calendar, never mind a plan. One lot says ‘more college places and kit so we can train builders, coders and engineers’.
“The other says ‘support for young people who aren’t in work or education so they can get into jobs or training’. Fine. Same pipeline. Same people. Same end goal.
“It’s only joined up if job centres, colleges and local employers actually talk, match courses to real local vacancies, and make placements doable for small businesses. If it’s different rules, different timelines and more forms, it’s silos again, and you’ll still be fighting over the same tiny pool of talent.”
Photo by Phillip Flores on Unsplash
