London and the South East is facing a skills crisis after it was revealed that 20% more workers required to meet the pipeline of around £96 billion of construction projects in 2014-17.

This could impact the wider economy as early as April 2015, when a total of over 600,000 workers will be needed on site to deliver major projects currently in planning, according to a new report by London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and KPMG.

The Report, 'Skills to build', outlines the labour requirements to deliver construction projects in London and the South East between 2014 - 2017 and the gaps in training that must be filled to meet this demand.

The industry has experienced great difficulties in recruiting enough skilled workers, for both professional roles and manual trades, to keep pace with new work. According to the report, a 51% increase in training provision would be required to meet demand for skilled labour between 2014 and 2017 to plug a gap of nearly 15,000 people.

-- Advertisement --

Unless the supply of construction labour is increased, house building targets will not be met and the delivery of large infrastructure projects will be jeopardised. With 255,000 workers needed on site to deliver the 2015 pipeline of housing and 400,000 of the workforce expected to retire in the next 5-10 years, change to the industry has never been more pertinent.

Richard Threlfall, KPMG UK Head of Infrastructure, Building and Construction said: "For the first time in many generations, the UK has a strong pipeline of construction and infrastructure projects to reinvigorate the economy and drive our future competitiveness. But delivery of that pipeline is now in jeopardy - not for lack of political will or funding – but for lack of a sufficiently large and trained workforce. Unless action is taken now, our housing targets will be missed, and infrastructure projects delayed.

"This report calls on the industry itself to wake up and take responsibility to increase levels of training dramatically."

(CD/MH)