Construction Skills

What Is It?

Working with the Commissioner for Skills Development, Employment and Skills Team at Essex County Council we continue to invest in the local skills pipeline and training provision; addressing shortages, future needs and enabling greater quality homes and accelerated delivery by developing a highly skilled workforce.

What Are We Doing?

• Essex County Council and former SELEP have invested in a number of facilities across Essex, to ensure they can respond to industry demand.  Recently, they launched the Aspirational Essex Programme aimed at enhancing skills and training opportunities across Greater Essex.
• Essex Chambers of Commerce are also leading on the Local Skills Improvement Plan for Essex, Southend and Thurrock – a Department for Education led initiative which will set out employer priorities for skills locally. Further information is available here.
• Skills evidence base, report and labour forecasting
• Expanding outreach and employer engagement
• Construction sector awareness marketing and information campaign to breakdown misconceptions and promote breadth of opportunity
• Influencing curriculum and educational provision including:
  • Promoting and supporting Design, Engineer and Construct qualifications in schools
  • Investing in future skills provision to support green energy, high quality house design and modern methods of construction, including retrofit skills as Essex County Council look to decarbonise their own estate, and encourage an increase in the various skills that feed into retrofit across the county.
• Supporting the bidding for external funding to support the sector
• Working with our FE sector to address tutor shortages
• Acting as a broker for the Apprenticeship Levy**.

**For the apprenticeship levy, Essex CC are working with a number of employers who are looking to receive or gift / share some of their levy, making it simpler for employers. For further information please go to the Levy transfer site: http://www.essexalts.co.uk.

Essex CC are also working alongside TrAC, a non-profit Shared Apprenticeship Service delivering Flexi Job Apprenticeships. Find out more information here – https://www.tracweb.co.uk/

A summary of all the main training providers in Essex, including FE colleges and HE universities can be found here.

Key Links For Further Information

One stop portal for careers, training, job opportunities for individuals, employees and employers – Essex Opportunities – Essex & Southend

Levy Transfer – http://www.essexalts.co.uk

Essex Construction Growth Commission (Mace) Report

The Essex Careers Magazine: Essex Careers (essexopportunities.co.uk) 

Retrofit – https://retrofitacademy.org

SELEP Major Projects – https://www.southeastlep.com/major-projects-group/

Essex Skills Plan – https://www.essex.gov.uk/plans-and-strategies

CITB – https://www.citb.co.uk/

Go Construct – https://www.goconstruct.org/