The Offsite Alliance and MOBIE have joined forces with the Workforce Foresighting Hub to review the future skills needed to drive innovation and tackle the construction skills shortage
With the current construction skills shortage the industry faces today, the need for skilled workers across various sectors is a significant challenge.
Many existing training programs and courses fall short of addressing the rapidly evolving demands of the modern construction landscape.
With sustainability and building safety continuously evolving, the workforce must be equipped with current, practical, and forward-looking education.
What is the Workforce Foresighting Hub?
The Workforce Foresighting Hub is a development and delivery programme managed by the core team on behalf of Innovate UK.
The process assembles industry experts to identify key organisational capabilities required at various stages of the value chain in the future.
An AI data model supports the process by suggesting key capabilities and future occupational profiles, which the industry experts verify.
The associated knowledge, skills, and behaviours required by these capabilities are then identified by educators, culminating in a gap analysis of the current educational provision.
How is the Offsite Alliance helping to bridge the construction skills gap?
Without a concerted effort to develop the workforce’s capabilities to meet emerging demands, the sector faces the risk of a construction skills shortage and difficulties adopting new, game-changing technologies.
The Offsite Alliance is sponsoring a new initiative: “Using a systems approach for design, production, installation and commissioning in construction”.
This initiative examines adopting a systematic, controlled and quality-assured approach to enable the construction sector to achieve its productivity, sustainability, and safety objectives outlined in national strategic plans.
The outcome of this initiative will be a comprehensive report featuring targeted recommendations to shape future training and industry standards, addressing identified gaps within the UK’s training and education system.
Charting future skills requirements
Commenting on the new initiative, Gaynor Tennant, founder of the Offsite Alliance said: “As the industry continues to evolve, it’s imperative that our skills and training landscape not only keeps pace but also future proofs the sector. Our close collaboration with MOBIE and our dedicated members has been instrumental in charting the future skill and competency requirements.
“We are thrilled to take the lead as the main sponsor for this crucial initiative. This foresight work will allow us to consolidate three years of effort and provide us with the comprehensive insights required to shape educational and career pathways of our workforce.”
How can you get involved in shaping the future of the construction industry’s workforce?
This is a critical industry-wide project, and your voice is needed.
The Offsite Alliance is asking those who would like to help in the mission to transform the skills and training landscape to attend two workshops held on Thursday 9th November, and Tuesday 14th.
