New Construction Jobs Plan brings together skills support

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has published a new Construction Jobs Plan, bringing together industry and government initiatives to strengthen the approach to recruitment, training and skills development across the sector. 

The plan includes a new target to create 40,000 industry placements annually for eligible construction learners, alongside measures to help employers recruit apprentices and develop their workforce.

The placements will contribute to the industry’s wider ambition to establish 100,000 job opportunities a year by the end of this Parliament. A new industry placement playbook, due in autumn 2026, will provide guidance for employers hosting learners.

Other commitments include developing a construction apprenticeship network to better connect young people with employers and training opportunities. A strategic workforce planning tool will help employers and training providers anticipate skills requirements and align provision with the pipeline of public and private construction work.

The plan also confirms further support for employers. This includes a £2,000 apprenticeship hiring payment for eligible businesses recruiting young apprentices from October 2026, alongside fully funded apprenticeship training costs for eligible apprentices under 25.

Dr David Crosthwaite, chief economist at BCIS, said: ‘One of the main challenges in strengthening construction’s skills pipeline is to improve the industry’s ability to respond flexibly to changing demand, without placing undue financial pressure on smaller firms to recruit and train workers.

‘Striking that balance is difficult, but this jobs plan shows that the government and industry are taking practical steps in the right direction. From a cost perspective, the additional support for SMEs is particularly welcome. Smaller firms can have limited financial capacity to take on apprentices or invest in training. In a slow-growth economy, where workloads are less predictable, those commitments carry greater risk.

‘Labour demand is likely to remain uneven across sectors and projects. Investment in AI and associated data centre infrastructure could increase demand for particular specialists, intensifying competition and putting upward pressure on cost inflation. It’s important that as the government and industry continue to evolve the skills agenda, such variations are understood and accounted for.

‘The new workforce planning tool is an encouraging sign and could be essential for joining-up visibility of need and skills availability. Ideally, efforts to strengthen the skills pipeline must be targeted and evidence-based, particularly when geopolitical uncertainty and supply chain disruption continue to make construction an increasingly unpredictable and challenging industry in which to operate.’

The government has confirmed that new sector-specific workforce plans are also in development, including for housebuilding, infrastructure and engineering building services.

The Construction Jobs Plan followed the release of Skills England’s annual skills report earlier this year. While highlighting progress, including the growing number of regional partnerships designed to better align education with employer demand, the report confirmed construction is among the sectors projected to need the most additional workers over the next decade.

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