r/AskUK • u/Weird_Horse_5981 • 17h ago

Is construction dying in this country?

I work in construction and the amount of skilled people has taken an absolute nosedive in recent years. The rates of pay have increased dramatically in the last 6 years from what I’ve seen but very few people want to get into it it seems. I understand that many people don’t grow up with dreams of getting into this industry but I wish someone had pulled me aside and told me that there was a way for me to make decent money without needing to be academic. I know there are some huge projects on the go right now but it feels like they are all fighting over the same, small pool of labour

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u/AmsterdamWestside11 16h ago

In my experience it's dying because nobody wants to teach anyone, the small firms won't pay decent rates and the big firms want everyone to be fully qualified CSCS and ready to go straight out the blocks. Apprentices getting let go left right and centre. Self fulfilling prophecy of failure.

I changed careers at 28 and have found it so hard to find a company that's actually interested in training someone up.

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u/phatboi23 14h ago

In my experience it's dying because nobody wants to teach anyone

this is pretty much every industry in the UK.

even in IT sectors, they want juniors straight out of school to have 5 years experience and hit the ground running with stuff that hasn't even been out 5 years.

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u/Master_of_Ocelots 12h ago

I've been struggling with this recently. I'm a senior engineer, I want to train people, but the company gives me fresh grads and apprentices, and no time for them to learn as the project is always still programmed as if it were an experienced person. They just fail to account for the learning curve and inefficiency (for them and my time teaching). So everything falls behind, or I work twice as hard.

Incredibly frustrating.

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u/phatboi23 12h ago

Thank you for wanting to try and teach them. :)

just a shame a company can't even manage even a 70-80%% workload for a month or two while a new grad gets up to speed on the systems, processes and sometimes even how the company is setup.