Exploring key focus areas

The construction industry plays a crucial role in enabling a thriving society by providing and maintaining buildings and infrastructure. However, the industry’s workforce faces particular challenges, including labour shortages – especially in specific trades, an ageing workforce, and difficulties recruiting young people. The sector is also slow to adopt new technologies and innovations. We need to collaborate to create an appealing working environment that attracts talented people into the industry and ensure that the workforce has the skills and competencies required to embrace new ways of working to deliver the outcomes needed in society.

To address the challenges of skills in the construction industry, there are a variety of initiatives across industry and academia tackling the issue from multiple fronts, for example:

• Culture and attractiveness of industry: Improving construction’s reputation and promoting careers in construction as rewarding and attractive opportunities. Create an environment that attracts and supports workforce diversity and encourages new entrants into the construction sector.
• Routes of entry: Ensure that the routes by which school leavers enter the industry are clear and accessible to a diverse and inclusive base, encouraging new entrants and creating suitable pathways into industry.
• Skills required for a modern construction sector: Understand the knowledge, skills and experience that are required in industry with a move from a focus on qualification to competence, embracing lifelong learning.

Our work with the Construction Leadership Council

1. Empowering the Workforce for a Modernised Construction Industry: A Focus on Net Zero

The Cambridge Laing O’Rourke Centre is working with the Construction Leadership Council’s sub-working group on ‘Skills for a Modernised Industry’ to deliver on the outcomes outlined in the Industry Skills Plan. Our academic research supports a robust understanding of the skills needed to enable the workforce to leverage digital tools and technologies, construction processes, and methodologies (such as off-site construction and automation) to deliver industry outcomes, focusing on net zero. The research also investigates how the skills needed in the workplace match the education and training provision.

2. Digital Skills needed for the future of construction 

Delivering meaningful change across the built environment will require more than the adoption of new technologies and new processes. Organisations also need the right skills and competencies across their workforce. This means understanding which capabilities are needed, where gaps currently exist, and how people can be supported to develop, adapt and thrive in a changing sector.

An important part of this work is our report, led by Tercia Da Silva Jansen van Vuuren for the Construction Leadership Council Future Skills Working Group, which explores the foundational competencies for data and digital solutions needed across the sector and develops insights to support future action. Its recommendations include creating a clear organisational vision for digital competency, assessing current strengths and gaps, working with government and training providers to address those gaps, and aligning digital upskilling with wider goals such as productivity, safety and sustainability.

In the following video, Tercia reflects on the University of Cambridge’s wider work and commitment to helping organisations across the built environment develop the skills and competencies needed now and into the future

3. Skills for industrialised construction

Our current work also focuses on the skills and competencies needed to support the wider adoption of industrialised construction. As the sector moves towards more integrated, digitally enabled and manufacturing-led approaches, the workforce will need to develop new capabilities across design, production, logistics, assembly, data use and collaboration.

Research insights from the Construction Engineering Masters

Explore a selection of research dissertations from our Construction Engineering Masters students, offering fresh perspectives on skills, training, equality, diversity and inclusion, workplace culture, wellbeing, education, and the future of the construction workforce.