Could there be a Worse Time to Have a Highways Skills Crisis?

Plans to upgrade and improve the nation’s highways through the Road Investment Strategy have ambitious aims for the foreseeable future. Much of the work is badly needed to ease congestion and promote economic growth.

At the same time Highways England estimates the need for an additional 12,000 people working across the Strategic Road Network within the next four years. This is more than a 50% increase on the current workforce of 21,000.

If we look exclusively at UK citizens, then there has been an underlying skills crisis for many years. It has been masked by a growth in imported labour. Around 40% of the people working on Crossrail were non-UK nationals, for example. After Brexit, who knows how many of those will still be available to infrastructure contractors working on highways projects.

So, what’s to be done?

Like many infrastructure contractors we are investing significantly in apprenticeships and training. Across the industry firms are also working hard to make the workforce more inclusive. There’s no quick fix for this but we are working hard to change perceptions and make sure everyone feels welcome.

There’s also a realisation that the skills we need tomorrow will not mirror those we have today. Technology and innovation have to play a greater part in improving productivity. We need to recruit and train accordingly.

As contractors we also need to be driving that innovation and actively seeking out smarter ways of working from other industries, academics and from around the world. Different procurement relationships and opportunities to engage earlier in the design phase of highways schemes will help everyone – not least taxpayers and road users.

Improving the skills picture is largely about contractors taking ownership and working with key partners to shape the solution. Which means greater engagement with educators to design appropriate programmes and training.

Many contractors would also argue that we need greater certainty about the future. With a clear pipeline of work that doesn’t keep changing we can recruit with confidence and provide more attractive career pathways.

One way or another skills shortages will have to be resolved. It would be great if everyone involved in maintaining and improving our highways infrastructure took collective ownership of designing what that solution needs to look like. That way we’ll get a solution that works for all of us.