Building industry to experience 'major shortages'

The building industry will face a major skills shortage in the coming years, a new report has found.

Research from Arup reveals that landscape architects, regeneration planners and sustainability professionals will all see a significant drop in numbers by 2012, Building.co.uk has reported.

Builders and other tradesmen have long been in short supply around the UK, but this could now spread to other industry professions, the report implies.

The Arup report notes that the likes of housing and welfare officers will be in surplus by about 25 per cent, but many other professions will be more negatively affected, particularly in the south-east of England and London.

"Although there are significant numbers of highly-qualified, highly-committed individuals throughout the industry, there are labour shortages, concerns over some technical skills, and generic skills are lacking," Building.co.uk quotes the report as stating.

The study comes as it was revealed that the construction industry in Edinburgh is increasingly turning to immigrant labour in order to cope with the severe shortfall in builders across the Scottish capital.


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