£100m for specialist construction colleges to plug skills gap

The government has unveiled new Technical Excellence Colleges, which will be situated up and down the country to train and deliver the workforce needed to build new homes, schools, and hospitals. 

These colleges are backed by £100 million and will train more than 40,000 future builders, bricklayers, electricians, carpenters and plumbers to help realise the government's mission to build 1.5 million homes by 2029. There are ten new Construction Technical Excellence Colleges, from Derby College Group in the East Midlands to New City College in Greater London and Exeter College in the South West.

This comes as recent figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that around 35,000 job vacancies needed to be filled in the construction sector.

This follows a £625 million investment announced in March, which will separately train up to 6,000 more skilled construction workers by 2029, funding apprenticeships, skills bootcamps and industry placements for school leavers.

A recent survey found that the percentage of construction firms funding or offering training to their workers has fallen from 57 per cent to 2011 to 49 per cent in 2024, which has led to the industry-led Construction Skills Mission Board to pledging to recruit an extra 100,000 construction workers a year by the end of this parliament.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: "We need skilled workers to deliver the homes, schools and hospitals that communities across the country are crying out for, and today's announcement underlines our commitment to the next generation of homegrown talent.

"Construction Technical Excellence Colleges will enable us to invest in people and give them the skills they need to break down barriers to opportunity in an industry which is essential to delivering growth through our Plan for Change."