The Home Builders Federation (HBF) has secured funding to expand a major skills improvement initiative.
The HBF House Building Skills Association will use funding from the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) to deliver hundreds more brick masterclasses and roll out new roofing masterclasses.
The funding is part of a £3m investment by the CITB in initiatives to develop residential construction skills, under a plan developed by the HBF with six major builders: Taylor Wimpey, Barratts, Persimmon, Vistry, Bellway and Redrow.
The master classes have been developed with sector bodies, the National House Building Council (NHBC), the Association of Brick Contractors and the National Federation of Roofing Contractors.
The classes aim to provide the skills and knowledge to tackle common problems encountered by NHBC inspection teams, and are delivered face-to-face at participants’ sites in England, Wales and Scotland.
Since the launch of the initiative in 2019, NHBC inspectors have delivered more than 1,100 sessions to more than 10,000 masons.
HBF chief executive Neil Jefferson said: “Investment in the housebuilding industry’s workforce is critical to ensuring that much-needed homes can be delivered to the quality standards that customers they expect rightly.
“By providing hands-on training in the workplace, this initiative has already successfully improved thousands of professionals. This new funding award will increase the roll-out of training and support housebuilders to deliver the high-quality new homes that communities need.”
CITB chief executive Tim Balcon said: “I am delighted to see the HBF securing this funding, which will enable thousands of workers to upskill and, crucially, help meet the needs of the pipeline construction homes. This initiative supports the wider Housebuilding Sector Skills Plan, which delivers an exciting program of sector-specific skills initiatives, which will really put employers in the driver’s seat.”
