The commercial construction industry faces a skills and labour shortage which could impair the industry's strength in the future, it has been suggested.
The crucial skills required to drive Britain's commercial construction industry forward could be absent in the next few decades, it has been claimed.
Skilled labourers that are essential to fulfilling the UK's
property investment projects and developments are ageing and are not being replaced by equally competent apprentices, according to a new report.
The construction workforce has grown by a fifth since the early-1990s, Construction Skills data shows, but its ability to support emerging
construction finance projects could be threatened by the industry's inability to recruit and train diverse employees.
Numbers of labourers aged under 24 years old working in the industry have declined by 27 per cent over this period, while the number of employees over 60 years old has doubled.
Commenting on the findings, incoming chief executive for ConstructionSkills Mark Farrar said: "As well as making more training places available, construction employers need to be more open-minded about who the perfect candidate might be.
"Last year we saw a 19 per cent increase in female apprentice applications, but we were unable to translate this into the same increase in females placed."
His comments come shortly after the associate editor of Construction News Nick Whitten warned that the industry is likely to see further job cuts over the next year.
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