The Mayor of London has entered a partnership with Lloyds Banking Group to launch a £1m Construction Skills fund…
In a bid to get more young people into careers in the construction sector, Mayor of London Boris Johnson has teamed up with Lloyds Banking Group to launch a new fund.
The Construction Skills fund aims to help London homebuilders gain the skilled workers needed to grow the industry.
The measure follows research released by Lloyds Bank this week which showed 87 per cent of UK housebuilders will increase the size of their workforce over the next 12 months. Almost a third reported they planned to use apprentices to grow their business over the next five years.
The £1m fund forms part of the group’s Helping Britain Prosper Plan, which will tackle the skills challenges in the capital through boosting construction apprenticeships.
It is hoped these apprentices will increase house building output in London, playing a major role in £95.7bn worth of construction projects planned across the capital and south east until 2017. In order to carry these projects out a 20 per cent increase in skilled workers is required.
A number of significant projects in the capital has led to the growth in the number of apprentices, with around 5,500 employed since 2010. This figure was boosted by major projects such as Crossrail and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
It is hoped this figure can be increased as more large construction schemes are started. HS2 and the need to build 25,500 homes across the capital will certainly provide significant opportunities for apprentices in the coming years.
Johnson said: “With some of the biggest infrastructure projects in the world taking place in the capital, and thousands of new homes being built, helping young people into construction apprenticeships has never been more important.
“We need to do everything in our power to help more people access construction opportunities and I am working hard with Government to make sure that London’s skills system works better and harder for the capital.”