Who will build the homes: the construction skills shortage

CIH policy manager Megan Hinch reflects on key takeaways from her session “Who will build the homes: the construction skills shortage” at Housing Brighton 2026.

Construction workforce capacity is a pressing issue for the sector – and one that provided much ground for discussion at Housing Brighton 2026. The need to build more homes is well established, underpinned by the government's commitment to delivering 1.5 million homes in this parliament, and there has already been meaningful progress through:

• Commitments in grant funding with the Social and Affordable Homes Programme
• Policy certainty on the Decent Homes Standard and Future Homes Standard
• Various planning reforms
• A long-term social rent settlement. 

One of the remaining barriers to delivery is the workforce itself – more specifically, the question of who exactly is going to build these homes. I chaired a session at Housing Brighton 2026 on this subject, titled “Who will build the homes: the construction skills shortage”, and was joined by speakers Josh Nicholson of Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and Tom Arey of PFP Thrive.

There are a growing number of reports focused on the problems of construction workforce capacity, along with potential solutions, including a recent report from the CSJ. In our session, we focused on two distinct but related challenges: skills and labour.

Skills

There’s a well-known issue around skills and competence in the construction sector. During the session, Tom from PFP Thrive remarked on the lack of nuanced understanding of the social housing sector in apprentices that had been given construction training elsewhere. It was noted that an apprentice shouldn’t only know how to build a home, but also why it matters, particularly in social housing, that a home is safe from damp and mould, and what professionalism means in this context.

Government has acknowledged the skills gap and announced various funding streams to train construction workers, which organisations are encouraged to access. Others have called for more action; as Josh from CSJ outlined, this includes reviews of regulations and a potential Future Workforce Credit.

One interesting point raised by the session audience was the role of AI in tackling the skills gap. Whilst widespread use of robots on UK construction sites remains some way off, it is important to look at how we can innovate the construction sector to boost efficiency and become a technologically attractive sector for current and future generations. That said, people will always remain central to the work, particularly people with the professional standards and values required to work in social housing. Increasing pathways to and within the sector must therefore remain a high priority.

Labour

We have an ageing construction sector workforce, with a gap in labour in construction, retrofit, surveyors and other specific trades like roofing. The CITB Construction Workforce Outlook 2025-29 outlines that we need to recruit 239,300 extra workers to meet all construction demands over the next five years. We need to start seriously thinking about recruitment, training and long-term workforce pipelines in housing and construction, which CIH is supporting with our CHOOSE Housing campaign.

Yet, according to our speakers at Brighton, we don’t have a problem with interest when it comes to attracting people to the sector. Young people are increasingly interested and have a positive perception of the construction trade. Our session speakers shared that you would likely have a hundred applications for one apprenticeship job opening. The question this raises is a significant one: how are we supporting the remaining 99 people who didn’t secure that role in finding an alternative route into the housing and construction sectors?

What happens now

The barrier, more often than not, is a lack of opportunity within the sector, rather than a lack of interest. And so, our session concluded with a call to action for all housing providers to boost their apprenticeship offering and take responsibility for training the next generation who will help to build and maintain our homes. This includes tackling the more practical challenges, including how apprentices can access sites and how to ensure the long-term sustainability of apprenticeships tied to specific developments.

Social housing providers have a critical role to play in developing the workforce that will deliver the homes this country urgently needs. Without a concentrated effort to invest in training and create genuine, appealing pathways into the sector, the question of who will build the homes will remain unanswered.