The email and blog post are a day late this week due to me having to rip out our kitchen! Oh the dust, the dirt and the amount of junk that I had hiding at the back of the cupboards! However, the work has given me inspiration for this week’s Careers Email!
Construction. I don’t know about you but I love a little bit of DIY every now and again and would fancy myself as a budding painter and decorator or even, at a push, a plumber but in all seriousness, there are times when only a professional will do.
Construction is one of those industries where everyone thinks they know everything about it. Yes, of courses there are plumbers, builders, and electricians but did you know there was also chimney engineers, Dry Liners or Piling Operatives? Do you know what they do?
There are in fact over 150 different jobs within construction and they range from practical onsite roles to roles within offices or even those that are working with the environment. It is the industry where there is something for everyone at every level. Whether you are fresh out of college, you’ve completed and apprenticeship or you have a degree Construction is a fantastic industry to work in.
The Construction Skills Network reports that there will be an increase of over 43,000 workers needed each year until 2025 as the industry grows to its pre-pandemic levels.
The construction industry currently employers over 2.7 million people and the biggest employer is currently Balfour Beatty.
There are more Plumbers than Bricklayers nationally (169,800 Plumbers and only 74, 600 Bricklayers); and more Electricians than Painters and Decorators (183, 600 Electricians and only 99,500 Painters and Decorators). I did warn you that I was a statistics fanatic, didn’t I?
In 2021 the UK Produced 907,900 metric ton of cement and 1.4 million bricks so I am reckoning we need more bricklayers!
Women actually represent around 11 percent of the workforce in Construction and lots of local governments are running projects to encourage more women to enter the industry. Leicester City council and Leicester College ran some fantastic workshops during February Half term and run them a regular basis. Women are not just entering at a trade level. Did you know that the CEO of HITT Contracting is Kim Roy who has been in Construction for over 22 years? Yet women are still underrepresented in the construction workforce. The statistics for BAME are even worse than women and the GMB state BAME accounts for just 5.4% of the construction workforce.
Maybe raise this topic with your students and ask them would they follow a career in construction?
You can find more information for signposting students at GO Construct and the CITB. GO Construct is super student friendly and offers a great quiz to see which career in construction your skills set would suit. So what will you be? A Plumber? A Surveyor or a CEO of the next construction company?