You can’t build a town without building its workforce

At UKREiiF in May, we set a room full of people from across development, construction, education and the public sector a challenge: build a new town, writes Jo Hall, of North West CTEC at Wigan & Leigh College.

The result was Jolly Harbour, a fictional Northern coastal town created during Place North West’s ‘How to Build a New Town’ breakfast. The exercise prompted exactly the conversations you would expect. What housing does a new community need? How will people move around? Where do health, green space, culture, and public services fit? How do we create somewhere with an identity rather than simply building houses?

Importantly, technical education was part of that conversation too.

That matters, because the skills system is infrastructure. If we are serious about planning new towns, major regeneration and infrastructure years or even decades ahead, we need to think just as deliberately about the people who will build them.

We cannot wait until a development reaches site and then ask where the workforce is going to come from.

Construction education has its own lead time. Colleges need visibility of future demand to understand which occupations are required, at what level and in what numbers. They need specialist teaching staff whose technical knowledge reflects a rapidly changing industry. They need the right facilities and equipment. And learners need confidence that the skills they are developing do lead somewhere.

Credit: North West Construction Technical Excellence College

Employers face a parallel challenge. Recruiting an apprentice or investing in workforce development requires confidence in future work. The greater the visibility and continuity of the development pipeline, the stronger the conditions for employers to make those investments.

This is why skills planning needs to happen much further upstream.

When we identify land, investment and infrastructure requirements for major development, we should also be asking what workforce will be required to deliver it. Where does that workforce currently exist? Where are the gaps? What capacity does the education system have to respond? What new technical capabilities will be needed? And how will the people entering education and training actually progress into the jobs being created?

That is part of the purpose of The North West Construction Technical Excellence College.The North-West CTEC is one of 10 Construction Technical Excellence Colleges established nationally. Led by Wigan & Leigh College, it brings together 32 further education colleges across the North West, working with employers, industry and regional and national partners to strengthen construction education and skills.

Our work ranges from boosting construction provision and developing the technical currency of FE teachers, through strengthening employer engagement and creating clearer pathways into apprenticeships and employment.

But underpinning all of that is a bigger opportunity: connecting the region’s education and skills capacity much more closely to where construction demand is heading.

Credit: North West Construction and Technical Excellence College

We are using regional intelligence to understand gaps between future demand and existing provision. We are developing Teacher Industry Exchange to bring industry and education closer together and ensure teaching reflects current practice. And we are working with employers and major projects to strengthen the connection between learners, apprenticeships and real employment opportunities.

None of those things works particularly well in isolation.

One of the conclusions from Jolly Harbour was the importance of hubs that bring different groups and sectors together. Construction skills require exactly that kind of collaboration. No individual college, employer, developer or project can solve the workforce challenge alone.

And perhaps that should influence how we think about the legacy of major development.

The legacy of building a new town should not only be the homes and infrastructure we can see. It should also be stronger training capacity, closer relationships between education and industry, new apprentices and employees, technically current teachers and a skilled workforce able to move from one project to the next.

At UKREiiF we designed Jolly Harbour from scratch. In the real North West, we already know that billions of pounds of housing, regeneration and infrastructure are coming.

The opportunity is to plan the workforce required to deliver that ambition with the same intent with which we plan the places themselves.

Because you can’t build a new town without building the workforce to build it.

Help shape the workforce that will build the North West. Explore how you can get involved with The North-West CTEC at www.nwctec.co.uk

• Jo Hall is director of The North-West Construction Technical Excellence College at Wigan & Leigh College.