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Farmer: construction shortages threaten housebuilding targets
A shortage of construction workers, lack of training and outdated technology threaten the government’s housebuilding targets, the author of an independent review of the construction industry has warned.
At a Communities and Local Government Select Committee hearing yesterday, Mark Farmer, author of the Farmer Review of the UK construction workforce, said the capacity of the construction sector and the skills gap are the biggest challenges facing the housebuilding industry.
The prospect of Brexit reducing the construction workforce is also a concern, Mr Farmer said.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research has previously warned that a hard-line stance on immigration in any Brexit deal would “severely limit” the capacity of the construction market.
Mr Farmer warned that unless improvements were made in skills and training, attracting new entrants into the workforce and pioneering innovative technology, it will not be possible to achieve the government’s targets. The government has committed to building one million homes by 2020.
Mr Farmer said: “In terms of skills and capacity, we are not attracting the amount of young people into the construction industry needed to maintain the workforce. This, in combination with an already shrinking workforce, and the potential of Brexit-related reductions in labour will further reduce the capacity of the construction industry.”
He added the government will have to think “long term and apolitically about housing if we are going to get anywhere”.
Large developers “dominate” the market, Mr Farmer said, and this is “not a healthy situation to be in when it comes to market stability”.
He said a range of tenures is “key” to providing stability and “pushing innovative technology”. The build-to-rent sector is a “crucial part” of increasing housing supply, he added, because it is using new technology in areas such as modular construction.
