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Closing the skills gap
How apprenticeships can help to build the homes the UK needs
FINANCE
Tim Reid
Customer Relationship Director, NHBC (National House Building Council)
Tim Reid
Customer Relationsip Director, NHBC (National House Building Council)
Issue 85 | September 2026
As the UK’s largest provider of new home warranties and a champion of quality in house building, NHBC is committed to raising standards across the housebuilding industry.
As an industry, we must collectively strengthen our focus on skills and training in the coming years. Government home-building targets are ambitious and demand for good-quality new homes is only growing. It’s essential we enable builders and subcontractors of all sizes to feel confident in taking on apprentices, and we must invest in the future of the sector.
Without a significant increase in the workforce, scaling up the volume of good-quality new homes will be incredibly challenging. More than 206,000 extra construction workers will be needed by 2030 just to meet the current demand, let alone build more new homes.
How NHBC is raising the standards
NHBC is heavily investing in practical, long-term training initiatives to help build the skilled workforce the housebuilding industry urgently needs.
We’re tackling the skills crisis head-on by investing £100 million into the development of 12 new multi-skill training hubs, which can train up to 3,000 new apprentices every year.
The hubs use an intensive training model that enables apprentices to complete their training in as little as 14-16 months, and gives trainees realistic, on-site experience from day one.
Our expanding national network is training the next generation of skilled housebuilders in the trades most urgently needed, including brickwork, groundwork, site carpentry and timber frame construction to support the delivery of new homes.
being invested by NHBC into the development of 12 new multi-skill training hubs
new apprentices can be trained every year in the new hubs in as little as 14-16 months
“More than 206,000 extra construction workers will be needed by 2030 just to meet the current demand, let alone build more new homes.”
NHBC's training hubs will focus on urgently needed trades, including brickwork, groundwork, carpentry and timber frame construction.
Our multi-skill training hubs
NHBC’s first multi-skill training hub opened in 2025 in Lichfield, funded in partnership with the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), with land provided by Redrow. It is training apprentices from all backgrounds in urgently needed trades in as close to real site conditions as possible and to NHBC’s industry leading standards.
In November 2025, planning permission was granted for an NHBC multi-skill hub in Northstowe, Cambridgeshire. This is being delivered in partnership with and built by top 10 house builder Keepmoat, with land and support provided by Homes England, and is due to open later this year.
Construction has also started on a flagship NHBC multi-skill training hub in East London at Barking Riverside. This new site sits within one of Europe’s largest housing developments, where up to 20,000 homes are planned, linking training directly to job opportunities on nearby building projects. It’s being delivered in partnership with Bellway and Barking Riverside Limited, the master developer behind the wider scheme. The project is also backed by £1 million in funding from CITB.
Our industry leading training is helping apprentices qualify almost twice as quickly as traditional education routes, which can take up to 30 months, getting more skilled, site-ready tradespeople into the construction workforce sooner.
Looking to the future
This is the kind of sustained, practical investment that will help us build the homes and careers this country needs. You can’t create skilled workers overnight, which is why we need to act now to create a major expansion of the workforce.
We need SMEs to come on board to help close the skills gap. Apprenticeships are a smart way for building firms to quickly grow a skilled workforce. Changing workload pipelines may present a challenge for them, but with training costs 100% funded by the Apprenticeship Levy for many and generous grants, there’s never been a better time for builders to take on an apprentice.
NHBC has a long history of effective collaboration and we’re working closely with industry partners to deliver industry-leading skills training. This approach is key to developing new talent across the sector and helping to close the skills gap. We must work together to build the skilled workforce needed to get Britain building again and deliver high-quality new homes at pace.
“With training costs 100% funded by the Apprenticeship Levy for many and generous grants, there’s never been a better time for builders to take on an apprentice.”
