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A major new collaboration has recently been announced, aimed at promoting the construction industry to secondary school children across the UK. This comes after findings that a mere 5% of students were actively considering careers in construction in 2022.

The School Outreach Company is working with UK construction industry leaders to raise £100,000 to create a network of five regional groups. These groups will then collaborate on a strategy for their region, with aims to promote the UK construction industry and bust the negative myths that young people hold.

Construction News said that the initial plans would set up regional groups in the North of England, the Midlands, the South West, London and the South East, Scotland, and Wales. Each regional steering group will be led by a minimum of four firms.

Liz Waters from Sir Robert McAlpine found that construction is not a career of choice for young people, who have long-held perceptions of it being dirty, male-dominated and manual. This research suggested that the CITB reinvest their training levy to work with young people. It was announced by Construction News that CITB have in-fact recently donated £5,000 to the new school outreach scheme.

The School Outreach Company estimates it costs around £40 to provide one school with several interactions throughout the year, so reaching the target of £100,000 will allow the scheme to reach over 2,000 secondary schools across the UK.

Working with companies and sectors in the UK, the School Outreach Company delivers both online and face-to-face engagement to nearly all of the UK’s secondary schools. SirRobert McAlpine research suggested that education experts must work with construction companies to create suitable programmes to fix the “evident disjoint between education and the industry”. This scheme is therefore a promising step towards alleviating this.

Anna, our Commercial Manager here at GR Plant, said:

“Firstly, it’s great to see large and small firms working together to improve the construction industry. Secondly, I think regional bodies are extremely important for ensuring a tailored and inclusive approach – this means different groups of secondary school children will be targeted rather than one particular cohort across the UK. Wales is often left behind when it comes to funding, so this is a promising move for Wales’ next generation in construction.”

With groundbreaking construction innovations currently in motion from Hinkley Point C to HS2, it’s important our young people know how they can get involved.