The reports, backed by ConstructionSkills and English Heritage, were launched at the Prince of Wales' Foundation for the Built Environment. The Traditional Building Craft Skills in England Report encouragingly showed that the shortage of skilled craftspeople to work on Yorkshire's historic buildings has been greatly reduced since the first NHTG report in 2005.
However, the future of the five million pre-1919 buildings in England could still be at risk as most of the workforce undertaking repair and maintenance work on these buildings does not possess the skills required to do the job properly.
According to the report more than 41% of construction output in Yorkshire consists of repair and maintenance work. Yorkshire also has more than 31,000 listed buildings and one of the richest historic environments in England. It possesses a number of England's world heritage sites including Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Park, which combines one of the best preserved medieval abbeys in England and Saltaire.
The report also shows that the shortage of craftspeople in this sector has reduced by 3,000 since 2005, when the NHTG announced a skills shortage of 6,590.
The number of craftspeople in the sector is around 109,000 compared to fewer than 90,000 in 2005, but with only 36% percent of contractors working on pre-1919 buildings it is estimated that only 33,000 craftspeople undertake work with traditional materials.
While around 16,000 mostly new entrants were identified as requiring some form of traditional building skills training in 2007, the evidence suggests that over two-thirds of the work, of which 67% is for private home-owners, is being carried out by those without the right skills and materials. This is detrimental to the buildings and stores up future problems and unnecessary extra cost to rectify.
58% of contractors in Yorkshire reported having problems recruiting workers that had traditional building skills, with carpentry being the hardest trade to recruit. When asked what their response had been to lack of skills 56% of contractors said they learn on the job and 38% used a subcontractor.
The NHTG is now focussing on ensuring that individuals working on traditional buildings receive the required training and guidance. This expands the work over the past three years, including improved recruitment and careers advice, developing heritage-specific qualifications and a programme for mainstream construction course college trainers to improve their understanding of traditional building methods and materials.
The NHTG will now be working with its partners to increase demand for suitably skilled and building-conservation accredited professionals and maximise the number of high-quality entrants into the sector by strengthening building conservation components within mainstream built environment courses. There is also a need to develop flexible training and improve advice and guidance on traditional building skills and materials and link these to the sustainability agenda.
