YOU PREPARED YOUR FITTERS?

No other options

I am afraid to say that the above does seem the only immediate option for installers who are in desperate need to get hold of the right people. It’s not ideal, as it costs the company a lot more, which ultimately the client pays for. But for many, it’s the only option.

Let’s face it, whilst there is great support for apprenticeships across the board, they have failed to plug the gap. For a decade our industry has been looking towards apprenticeships to help solve the problem. For a decade the Government has tried various schemes and trials to try and fill the gap.

Yet, the problem gets worse. Only last week it was reported that the construction sector as a whole in the UK needed another 250,000 workers by 2026. That’s less than four years away, and we have to be frank, there’s not a hope in hell we’ll find that vast number of people in less than four years.

What we are looking at is the end result of various Governments, both red and blue, making concerted efforts to funnel as many kids through university as possible, with trades and manual jobs being shoved to the side. For the last three decades, our school leavers have been taught to look down at trade jobs and aspire to earn a degree instead.

How bizarre then that we now find ourselves in a position where bricklayers and plasterers are earning much more than many are with a degree up their sleeves.

What did we expect to happen? Year after year we tell kids that University is the only way to go, and then suddenly, we’re surprised and frustrated that we don’t have enough of the right people to build all the things we need!

I’m afraid that until the education system from the very start begins to teach kids that there is great value in trades jobs, like fenestration installation, like building, like engineering, like plastering and plumbing, then we will only find that the situation we now find ourselves in will get worse.

And it has to start at 10 or 11 years of age. By the time kids get to 16, they’ll have already been told that only University provides the golden gates to life. Schools need to be providing a wide variety of options for kids so they can choose avenues that suit them best. We all know that in every class there are those that are academically gifted and those that are practically gifted.

Schools and colleges simply need to provide the apparatus to let kids excel in their own choices, rather than being indoctrinated.