We urgently need to address skills needs if house building aims are to be realised - Nikki Davis
Dear Secretary of State for Education, on behalf of governors, colleagues, and students at Leeds College of Building, may I congratulate you on your election win and becoming the Secretary of State for Education.
Given Leeds College of Building is the only specialist general further education construction college in the UK, I was delighted to hear your plans for a comprehensive post‐16 education strategy. Creating higher-quality training and employment paths by empowering local communities is vital.
Leeds College of Building was established in 1960 with a unique focus on providing high-quality education and training for the construction and built environment sector. We teach approximately 5,000 students annually, almost 3,000 of whom are apprentices, including degree apprentices across five Apprenticeship Standards.
We work with over 800 organisations, in partnership with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, to support all our students. Thanks to our national reputation for excellence, apprentices from Cornwall to Newcastle attend our college - effectively a model for the manifesto commitment of designated Technical Excellence Colleges.Pledges outside of education are equally important to our organisation, specifically how we can support construction employers in meeting national house building targets.
Retrofitting existing homes is vital to achieve Net Zero, and it is no exaggeration to say house building needs to increase at a pace and scale not seen since the Second World War.That being said, we face a challenging time. Experts have warned about the potential of an enormous skills shortage within the UK construction sector for over a decade.
We urgently need professionals on a scale never seen before, yet we are seeing bottlenecks in a system when we need it to be as free-flowing as possible.
House building and Net Zero targets can only be achieved with a skilled workforce, and that workforce needs to encompass school leavers, apprentices and adults. We must ensure everyone is given the opportunity to attain good, sustainable, and productive jobs. Apprenticeships are among the best ways to create a skilled workforce, yet the barriers to growing this provision are significant. You also spoke of work to recruit 6,500 new expert teachers for schools and colleges. Although very welcome, this ambition raises another concern. Teaching salaries in further education do not come close to average earnings in the private construction sector.
Without the necessary funding for competitive remuneration, colleges will continue to struggle with recruiting and retaining enough qualified and specialist teaching staff.
However, although finances will be restrictive, I am confident there are ways to remove the blocks faced by employers and providers to attract more staff and create further apprenticeship opportunities for young people. We would welcome the opportunity to speak with you further and formally invite you and your colleagues to visit Leeds College of Building.
I hope that the experience and expertise of our college, employers, and students can be used to inform policy development and help address these critical issues.
Nikki Davis is principal and CEO of Leeds College of Building and voluntary trustee at the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB).