Why construction must get ahead of Burnham’s skills plan

Education and training for young people is a mess. That is a statement pretty much every business owner and construction leader we talk to can agree on, which is rare. Everyone – whether they work in engineering, design, cost consulting or the trades – believes the system is failing individuals and businesses alike.

This is not a new complaint. For decades businesses and some educators have criticised outdated attitudes and systems that value and prioritise academic achievement over technical knowledge. This unequal treatment is acted out every August on exam results days: the traditional academic next steps are clear and well understood, the newer technical routes much less so.

Politicians know this, and in the past decade four prime ministers have promised to fix the entrenched academic versus technical divide.

We’ve had Theresa May’s legislation paving the way for T-levels, then Boris Johnson talking of radical change in the FE sector (remember the skills boot camps, anyone?), then Rishi Sunak and his plan to scrap A-levels and T-levels, replacing them with the Advanced British Standard – which advanced as far as being dropped by Keir Starmer. He in turn brought in Skills England to oversee apprenticeships and technical training, replaced the apprenticeship levy, created technical excellence colleges in high-growth sectors, published a white paper and an assessment review, scrapped the EBacc and introduced V-levels.

Disjointed layers of piecemeal reform have only made what was already a difficult pathway even more confusing for everyone

But these disjointed layers of piecemeal reform have only made what was already a difficult pathway to navigate even more confusing for everyone. It seems ridiculous that at the same time as an increasing number of young people despair of ever finding good jobs, more and more employers are frustrated at the lack of recruits ready for the workplace. A lot must be going very wrong for both these statements to be true, and the bottom line is this country’s economy is suffering. 

Now it is Andy Burnham’s turn to pitch in. Last month he announced reforms to ensure schools offer technical subjects, alongside core academic subjects, to students from the age of 14, saying the country should “value the hard hat every bit as much as the graduation cap”. Many schools already offer technical qualifications, but Burnham’s plan is to link them more closely with local employment opportunities and improve their quality, availability and reputation.

At the same time, he wants to devolve post-16 education funding to mayors and combined authorities. This is all part of Burnham’s devolutionary agenda and goes back to his days as Manchester mayor, when he tried this approach with the Manchester Baccalaureate (MBacc), which was launched for the 2024/25 academic year.

His overall message has landed well with an industry driven by technical skills, and with a wider public that has been made aware of the one million 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, training and employment (NEETs).

Many so-called NEETs end up in a vicious cycle where, because they have no job history or training, they lose out on opportunities to gain experience – which means when they apply for jobs they are unsuccessful.

Clearly, it is in everyone’s interests – young people, parents, schools and colleges, local authorities, employers – to prevent this from happening. So could Burnham’s Manchester pilot be the answer that helps young people find jobs and employers find recruits who are ready for the workplace?

Still at the early stages, it is hard to put the MBacc to the test in terms of long-term job outcomes for participants. What we do know is that it has promoted technical subjects in seven growth areas for the city region, one of which is construction and the green economy – and that at the start of the year the Greater Manchester Combined Authority claimed to have successfully partnered with 350 employers to offer over 1,000 T-level placements.

At the moment it is unclear which elements of the MBacc will be taken up come September 2028 in the expected wider roll-out across the country under Burnham’s vision. We’ve been promised more details in a white paper to be unveiled on Budget day at the end of October.

In the meantime, there is a job to do to make sure the government fully understands how construction employers can help shape a better-integrated system. I’ve detected a real industry appetite to understand Burnham’s plan and be involved early in discussions. Already sector leaders we talk to have picked up on some of the opportunities to tackle the shortfall in construction workers over the next decade, as well as the risks of too narrow a focus on trades in a digital age. Others point out that Burnham should be careful to build on structural changes brought in by Starmer to avoid unnecessary disruption to the FE sector.

Above all, construction employers must be at the centre of regional place-based training opportunities. If the MBacc logic is to be successfully scaled up nationally, then the sector gateways and related work placements have to offer genuinely valuable experiences for young people that improve their prospects of securing good jobs. The key, as ever, will be the funding. Firms – particularly SMEs – face rising costs across their businesses, so if they are to come forward in enough numbers as genuine skills and training partners then the devolutionary funding settlement has to match needs.

If Burnham’s reforms are to be more than another well-intentioned layer in an already confusing skills landscape, construction leaders must help shape them now. The industry cannot afford to let another generation of talent slip through the gaps simply because there is no clear route from the classroom to the world of work.

Chloë McCulloch is the editor of Building