I read Building magazine’s recent articles by editor Chloe McCulloch and Turner & Townsend’s Patricia Moore about the skills debate triggered by Andy Burnham’s recently announced reforms with a mixture of agreement, optimism and some frustration. 

The debate is really important. We need a much better relationship between education, skills and employment, and construction cannot afford to sit back and wait for government to solve its workforce challenges.  

I also wholeheartedly agree that presenting technical and academic education as opposing choices has done young people and our industry few favours. Construction needs exceptional tradespeople, technicians, engineers, surveyors, architects, managers and digital specialists. It needs people entering through entry-level apprenticeships, further education, university and higher and degree apprenticeships - different pathways into the same extraordinary industry. 

Sadly, there’s still a sense that we’re starting this conversation from scratch.  As Building’s editor recognises, we aren’t.