"The government must work with the education system to promote the trades as a career path, or we will be facing bigger shortages than ever at a time when house building needs to be a priority for the British people"
- Andy Simms - MyBuilder
Government policy around house-building targets in the UK has been inconsistent over the past 15 years, with 16 housing ministers since 2010. Despite repeated pledges to build more homes by successive governments, no targets have been met in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, the housing shortage continues to grow, with an estimated shortfall of over four million homes across Britain.
According to new data from MyBuilder.com, 57% of people are not confident that the latest government targets for house building will be met. In the age range of over 55s, this jumps to 72% stating that they are not confident that these aims will be achieved.
Geographically there are some variations in the levels of confidence of British people in the house building targets. Bristol has the least confidence, with 70% of those surveyed believing the goals would not be met, while Londoners had more confidence, with less than half (48%) stating that they did not think the Government would achieve its goals.
The list below shows the percentage of respondents in each geographical who are not confident that the government will meet its house-building targets:
Southampton 68%
Nottingham 67%
Brighton 65%
Birmingham 63%
Norwich 61%
Manchester 59%
Wales 57%
Scotland 57%
Liverpool 56%
Leeds 55%
Newcastle 55%
Industry professionals have pointed out that the current skills shortage in construction and the skilled trades could make this new target problematic.
The new Labour government has stated that it has a target of building 1.5 million houses by 2029. While experts at MyBuilder welcome this ambitious target, it raised concerns about how realistic this is, taking into account the skills shortage within the building industry.
According to recent research from the UK Trade Skills Index (2023), the UK is facing its largest-ever deficit of skilled tradespeople in history. The industry will need to recruit close to a million new apprentices in the next ten years just to stay afloat - and that’s without an increase in house-building targets.
The Skills Index also found that the UK has seen a worrying rise in skills shortages across construction – from 29% in Q1 2021 to 55% in Q4 2021. Widespread shortages exist particularly among plumbers, bricklayers, carpenters, and electricians.
Andy Simms, from MyBuilder, comments: “It’s great to see that the new government is keen to prioritise house building when there is such a problem in this area.
“Government incentives helped the UK see a spike in trades apprenticeships, but in 2021 nearly half of this apprenticeship levy was unspent. The government must work with the education system to promote the trades as a career path, or we will be facing bigger shortages than ever at a time when house building needs to be a priority for the British people.”
