The pledge to “Get Britain Building Again” seems to have dominated all discourse in the construction industry since July of last year.
In truth, the general housing “supply vs demand” race has probably remained “the” hot topic for the last ten years or more. Reigning chief in the big discussion are questions of the specifics. While mostly everyone agrees that 1.5 million homes is a grand idea, the who, what and where seem to be hard to pin down.
It must be said that the baby steps of the Labour Government have gone a long way to answering these specifics. It’s most certainly been encouraging to see the changes to the National Planning Policy Framework that’s etched pledges into stone. (read more about that on page 12) With mandatory council targets, a brown (and grey) field approach and financial and personnel reinforcements for local planning officers, the future is looking decidedly less bleak, tackling those “what” and “where” questions at least somewhat.
We’re not quite out of the woods yet though and the “who” questions of these lofty housebuilding ambitions are yet to be resolved in any sense. Firstly, who is going to build these houses? According to data from the Construction Products Association, the industry has lost an average of 70,000 workers a year in the past five years. In comparison, apprenticeship starts have averaged 31,000 per year (with a dropout rate of 40%), leading to a possible loss of 50,000 workers per year. While this isn’t the full story, and doesn’t account for skilled workers coming over from abroad, the number of incoming migrant workers has taken a knock too following on from Brexit. Our workforce is slowly ageing out of the industry at a time where we need more new entrants than ever. What is needed is a strong push from government to try and get young people into construction and stay interested. A drop out rate of 40% shows that it’s not just getting apprentices through the door that’s the issue, it’s keeping them interested and engaged too that needs to be prioritised. The minimum wage for apprentices was increased in the Autumn Budget of last year but the ball needs to keep rolling with incentives. For the past twenty years, the general cultural focus has been on University based further education from teachers, parents and politicians alike. It’s high time this changed, and the trades were given the respect they deserve as valued roles in our society.
This isn’t the only “who” question that needs to be answered. It’s not just enough to grow a workforce to build all these houses, we need to pin down who is actually going to buy them. According to the UK census of 2021, around 1 in every 4.5 families have an adult child living with them. This is a number that’s been steadily rising, while the home ownership rate has slowly decreased since 2018. Young people are finding it more and more difficult to move out, as the average cost of homes and rent has exponentially taken over the average income. It’s a difficult situation because prices aren’t as determined by the house or the housebuilder itself. Housebuilder businesses need to make a profit in order to pay their staff and keep going. I’m sure none of you just do it for the fun of it! The high cost of land in this era of increasing scarcity has a chokehold on the final price of a build. Thankfully, the existence of the First Homes scheme is trying to put a start to fighting back against this for young people. Equally, developers are increasingly offering cash incentives to prospective first time buyers. The cost of houses isn’t necessarily something we can control for now, but helping to make those costs more achievable for those that are trying to get their foot on the ladder is. So, much the same as incentives for apprentices, more of this please!
