The scale of the skills gap

There were over 1,100 vacancies for installers being advertised on job sites throughout the UK at the end of the first week in May.

This was according to research conducted by Building Our Skills in association with FrontFoot, specialists in re-introducing military service personnel into mainstream industry.

Building Our Skills ambassador John Ogilvie said: “Seeing over 1,100 vacancies being advertised for installers at a single point in time was truly shocking. It is perhaps the first time we have been able to quantify the nature of the problem which we are all aware of and, of course, these are only the ones that are being formally advertised. The true number is going to be much higher.”

Building Our Skills recently launched an initiative to try to encourage the industry to look at the armed forces sector as potential pool of new recruits, and the early response has been very encouraging, it said.

“Seeing the scale of the problem in black and white is guaranteed to concentrate the mind, and as an industry we have to think differently if we are going to start bridging the skills gap which is still growing,” John said.

Tim O’Keefe for FrontFoot said: “If employers are able to fill these positions, they are only going to be able to do so by taking installers from a competitor. It doesn’t reduce the skills gap, it just moves the problem somewhere else; the overall numbers needed don’t go down.

“We are keen to work with the fenestration industry and to bring new blood to it.”