No government can come close to its 300,000 new homes target by 2025 without a radical rethink in the way we build houses, warns Make UK Modular
Britain does not have the labour force to meet the government’s target of 300,000 homes a year by 2025. Last year, just 11,000 construction apprentices completed courses, most of which did not enter the housebuilding industry. To hit the new homes target, the traditional housebuilding sector would need to recruit 137,000 more workers.
Additionally, the 360,000 construction workers due to retire by 2030 must be replaced with a further 24,000 workers to complete essential government initiatives, such as remediating unsafe cladding on high-rise buildings across the country.
The construction industry needs to recruit 950,000 workers by 2030 to meet government demands
The construction industry’s labour force is also tasked with retrofitting homes to meet the government’s net zero targets, which will require 220,000 new workers by 2030. This labour shortage equated to a loss of around £2.6bn of output in construction in 2022 and £263m of lost housebuilding output.
In total, the construction industry faces a collective recruitment total of over 950,000 workers by 2030 to meet all of these demands from the government.
Modular is 40% more productive than traditional housebuilding
According to Make UK Modular, modular homes offer a solution to these demands. Modular housebuilding requires 50% fewer workers to construct the same number of traditional homes.
Furthermore, modular’s in-house training model means modular manufacturers can tap into a diverse labour pool of career changers, people coming from economic inactivity or less-qualified workers keen to learn new skills.
Jobs are secure full-time permanent contracts, delivering work security which does not exist within the traditional construction sector.
To scale up – modular needs the government to:
- Remove the accidental double government levy charge on modular manufacturers by exempting them from the scope of the CITB levy.
- Build supply chain capacity by repurposing the £10m allocated for the MMC Taskforce and use it to support a match-funded supply chain transformation programme based on those government has successfully delivered in aerospace, offshore wind, and nuclear.
- Solve the housing crisis faster by dedicating 40% of the affordable housing programme to modern methods of construction.
‘Government must help modular to grow at speed’
Steve Cole, director, Make UK Modular, said: “To address the issue of labour shortages which is now at critical point, Government must help modular to grow at speed and take advantage of the fact modular can build homes quickly but also homes which are efficient to heat and run.
“The changes we are asking for on the levy, reallocating the money for the MMC Taskforce and dedicating a substantial chunk of the affordable homes programme to modular would not cost any extra money. But they would help drive way faster growth in the sector and mean modular factories could operate at maximum productivity to deliver the homes Britain so desperately needs.”
