Industry needs to apply models for skills training at scale, argues Kevin O’Connor
Published yesterday, the Milburn Review makes for stark reading. More than one million young people are now not in work or education, a figure predicted to rise to one in six within five years if no action is taken.
The review, authored by Chair of The Social Mobility Foundation Alan Milburn, examines the challenges facing young people in an increasingly adverse jobs market, including the legacy of the Covid-19 Pandemic and growing mental health difficulties.
But while the review’s findings are a difficult read, they also present an opportunity for positive change – and it’s one the construction sector needs to grasp with both hands. The question now, is how to do so effectively.
As an industry, we’ve been grappling with skills shortages for years. Training initiatives are diverse and varied, but they’re not always – or indeed often, translating into meaningful employment. If they were, with 35,000 construction sector vacancies to fill, we could be making a decent dent in those youth unemployment figures.
So, what’s the key? For me, it’s initiatives like the Retrofit Skills Bootcamp Programme that, at Durkan Regen, we’re running in partnership with The Skills Centre, L&Q and our supply chain and that is wholly focused on a ‘training to work’ approach. It’s living proof that it really is possible to develop specialist skills quickly and in a targeted way that connects people with real jobs and fills critical skills gaps.
While the review’s findings are a difficult read, they also present an opportunity for positive change – and it’s one the construction sector needs to grasp with both hands
The bootcamps - which have attracted the interest of DESNZ’s Warm Homes Taskforce, among others - provide onsite, targeted training with tight timescales for progression and an offer of wage certainty.
Unlike other schemes, the bootcamp programme works closely with supply chains from the start to define the precise skills required for roles and align training content with employer needs. Crucially, the programme moves successful trainees straight into employment in the supply chain on live projects.
The bootcamps stand out, in particular, for supporting people who face barriers to employment, including those who are NEET (not in education, employment or training) and the long-term unemployed.
Recognising the unique difficulties faced by this group, trainees receive 12 months of wrap around support including mentoring, financial guidance and housing advice. This isn’t offered anywhere else in the sector and is helping individuals both build and sustain a career. The Greater London Authority has recognised the programme’s success and we’re exploring expanding the model London wide as part of the Mayor of London’s Inclusive Talent Strategy.
Training entrants to our industry in this way offers the opportunity for targeted, volume job creation and, in 2025, the programme delivered 18,000 training hours across six bootcamps, 45 work placements and 13 job outcomes. As an SME, our work here is a microcosm of what could be adopted and delivered at scale by larger contractors and the wider industry, and it’s just one example of many initiatives we are working on. The unifying point, however, is the focus on training for work, not just a certificate.
Of course, there are no silver bullets – not for fixing our sector’s skills crisis nor for tackling the seismic proportions of youth unemployment that the Milburn Review makes so starkly clear. But, surely, training for work must be a good place to start. We’ve got the model, we know it works. Now let’s apply it at scale, for the sake of our sector and for the sake of this generation and their future prospects.
Kevin O’Connor is head of social value delivery at Durkan Regen
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