According to the construction firm Skanska, around 1,500 construction jobs will be created in the UK construction industry over the next two to three years to ensure sufficient skilled workforce for future growth.
The new workforce will help the company with the completion of the major rail, water, building and roads contracts that it has been awarded.
Prime minister David Cameron announced that £36bn of planned investment into UK infrastructure for 2014/15 could support more than 150,000 construction jobs.
Together with chancellor George Osborne, he stated that more than 200 projects in rail, road, local transport, flood defences, broadband, airport infrastructure and waste management are due to start in 2014/15.
Mr Cameron will say: “Ensuring Britain has first-class infrastructure is a crucial part of our long-term economic plan: supporting business, creating jobs and providing a better future for hard-working people.
“As a crucial part of our long-term economic plan, this government is backing business with better infrastructure so that more jobs and opportunities are created for hard-working people, meaning more financial security and peace of mind for families.”
Skanska said it expected a period of planned growth and expansion and would increase its workforce across a range of sector. There will be a focus on construction and infrastructure contracts in particular, including commercial building in London and projects for health and pharmaceutical clients, as well as across the road, rail, utilities and energy sectors.
Mike Putnam, president and chief executive of Skanska UK, said: “With more focus on infrastructure investment, we have seen our visible pipeline of new work growing strongly during the last nine months, giving us increased confidence about the future.”
“Having the right people with the right skills in the right numbers is therefore a priority for us. We are accelerating our recruitment activity significantly across all our operations, to fill roles at all levels of the company and in many parts of the UK.”
In January 2014, the published CITB research revealed that in the next five years to keep up with demand, the construction industry will need to recruit 34,600 technical staff , due to faster-than-expected recovery.
Photo Source: Skanska