Getting Britain Building: Structural Timber Businesses are Investing in the High-Skill Jobs of the Future

In 2022, Harvard economist David Deming published a landmark analysis on the value of human capital to business and national economies. Human skills or a lack thereof, Professor Deming suggests, are rather important in determining who wins and who loses. His analysis suggests human capital explains at least one-third of the variation in labour earnings within countries and at least half of the variation across nations. Deming’s thesis is clear, to future proof your performance, investing in skilled labour is a non-negotiable.

In the UK, the construction industry is in a constant battle to maintain the skills base required to meet the formidable targets set for it by Whitehall. The Office for National Statistics indicates the sector is struggling to fill some 35,000 vacancies, with employers reporting over half of vacancies can’t be filled due to a lack of required skills.

The sector is ageing too. Britain is rapidly running out of bricklayers, with some 30 percent due to retire within the next 10 years. And according to the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), over 250,000 extra construction workers will be required by 2028 to meet the demand created for new homes.

For many young people brought up on a diet of perpetual wireless connectivity, the prospect of a 10-hour shift on a wintery building site doesn’t exactly get the juices flowing. To address this, Britain’s structural timber manufacturers are working hard to provide the kind of skilled work environment that school and university leavers would rush to work in.

The use of structural timber in construction involves the production of structural components off-site in the comfortable confines of a high-tech factory. And with automation and artificial intelligence playing an increasingly prominent role, human capital is freed up to focus on everything from design to business strategy.

At the Structural Timber Association (STA), we are committed to education and training for members to ensure that they can deliver a highly-skilled, quality service to all clients. The STA rolled out the installer training scheme and the designer training scheme – the start of the learning programme the STA is currently developing. The STA also provides education and skills development to ensure that those members with accreditation are operating to the highest quality and skill levels.

We also have a dedicated skills and training committee, established to ensure that the STA supply training that is relevant and needed throughout the sector as well as ensuring that our education content is current, robust, and meets all regulatory requirements. 

Last year we were proud to launch our Skills Hub. The Hub has been created to provide STA members and the structural timber community and the wider construction industry with the latest information and guidance on sector specific skills, training, and education.

And we have been pleased to contribute towards the development of the Timber in Construction (TiC) Policy Roadmap as part of the CTI (Confederation of Timber Industries). The Roadmap identifies several seismic opportunities to increase skills, capacity and competency across the timber construction supply chain. This includes improving the visibility of forestry and timber construction as careers at school, promoting Design and Technology (D&T) qualifications in colleges, and increasing the volume of apprenticeships.

Human capital is perhaps the single biggest determinant of business performance. We are proud to be going all out to drive a skills revolution in structural timber.

By Andrew Orriss, Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Structural Timber Association.