CLC contemplates no deal impact on skills

The CLC offers recommendations on labour and skills in post-Brexit construction sector.

In February, The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) published a ‘No Deal Contingency Planning Report’ which offers the Council’s recommendations and actions for issues around labour and skills.

CLC Skills Workstream lead and Mace chief executive Mark Reynolds comments in the foreword: “It is clear that a ‘no deal’ has the potential to be extremely disruptive to the UK construction sector, particularly in regards to its access to skilled labour and the supply of materials and services. More than 165,000 citizens from the EU work in our industry.”

One of the key outputs of the report is a call for government to review the proposed future immigration system to ensure it is fit for purpose for construction and ‘avoids dramatic labour shortages in our sector which will impact the delivery of important projects across the country.

A key sticking point is the ‘skilled worker status’ which the industry has already pointed out is too high for the majority of skilled construction workers the industry needs. The CLC askes for the qualification level for a skilled worker to be reduced to NVQ Level 2. The Home Office is also requested to reduce the salary threshold to significantly below £30,000 in line with median UK salaries for skilled trade workers.

The report says: “In the short-term, it is particularly important to ensure that as many as possible of the current EU nationals working in our sector secure their rights to work in the UK after Brexit and our sector is given the breathing space it needs to address the loss of its current skilled labour pool.”