UK Housebuilding Industry 'Faces Crisis in Next 12 Months'

The UK housebuilding industry faces a major crisis in the next 12 months unless the supply of construction labour is dramatically increased, a new report has warned. KPMG and the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry say there are simply not enough skilled workers needed to deliver the 2015 pipeline of housing. And the 'Skills to Build' report claims the situation will only get worse with 400,000 of the current workforce expected to retire in the next five to 10 years. The report says the number of construction workers needs to grow by 20% just to deliver the £96 billion infrastructure pipeline for the next three years. Download the report from the KPMG website.

Recession Puts Pressure on Skills

Research commissioned by the CIH indicates the recession and economic downturn is placing increasing pressure on the learning and development activities of housing organisations in England. The research indicated that the training activity of 52 per cent of housing organisations had already been affected by the recession. Nearly seventy per cent of housing organisations questioned expected the recession to have an impact on their training activity in 2010.Housing associations expect to be least affected by the recession (62 per cent), followed by ALMOs (76 per cent). Nearly all of local authorities (92 per cent) expect to be affected. Read more on the CIH website.