It has been announced The Midlands Energy Strategy could lead to contractors and property developers will be less affected by the construction skills shortage. This announcement has come from a Birmingham based property consultancy.
It has been announced that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has allocated £20 million to be spent on tackling the skills shortage on the construction industry. At the moment, property developers and contractors are finding it difficult to find skilled tradesmen. This means that the construction process faces more difficulty, and said tradesmen are able to charge more for their services due to the high demand. This investment could mean that developments are more efficient and the cost of developments could go down, as the demand for skilled tradesmen is met.
Amongst those praising the investment by the Government is Marcus Higgins, from Naismiths. Addressing the skills shortage will reduce the chance of on-site tradesmen charging an inflated price for their work. The investment could also lead to an investment in the future of the construction industry by addressing the shortage and skilled tradesmen and hopefully getting a larger number of younger people trained up.
Especially due to the current drive to address the housing shortage in the country, there has been an increase in the demand for skilled trades people. With the demand for skilled workers higher than ever, and the tradesmen being in such short supply, there has been an excessive increase in pricing from tradespeople to capitalize on the demand. Currently developers have to enter a bidding type situation to acquire the tradesmen who will, understandably, work on the jobs that pay the most.
It is hoped that £20 million will be enough to address this skilled shortage, however only using the funding to try and get more people to join the sector will tell if it enough investment to make a difference to the sector.
