Columnist

We must forge change to close the skills gap

There’s a construction crisis engulfing Britain.

The industry knows it. And so does the new Prime Minister.

Thankfully, Andy Burnham is trying to tackle it.

By catapulting technical education back at the heart of secondary schools and linking training to local industry, he could help rebuild Britain’s pipeline of skilled workers.

But while we are waking up to the need for a younger workforce, one major question remains: who will train them?

We’ve always had engineering minds; you only need look at the Lego boom – young people are naturally keen and curious, and many want to build blocks for a living.

But when apprenticeships declined, the problem started.

Those people weren’t just welders, pipefitters or machinists.

They were future mentors who would pass on the knowledge that can’t be learned from a textbook.

And while employers still want apprentices, you simply can’t just take one off the tools to train them; they have projects that need finishing now.

In my field of welding, the scale of the ageing workforce means the crisis is even more imminent.

Around a quarter of welders are aged over 55, and many will have more than half an eye on retirement in the next few years.

Britain needs almost 1000 new welders each year.

However, there were just 231 welding apprenticeships in 2024, despite a mandate to get Britain building.

Infrastructure updates. Data centres. Offshore wind farms.

These are high on Westminster’s agenda, yet barely a quarter of the welders needed are coming through.

And while Andy Burnham deserves credit for acting swiftly, the reality is we need innovative ideas to make this work.

Companies, for example, could be rewarded for using experienced employees to provide mentoring, and recently-retired engineers could be encouraged to pass on their decades of experience before the knowledge vanishes.

But we also need to do more to attract women into this world.

As one of the North East’s few female welders, I launched a business – AdMel – in part to inspire more women to put on the mask and gloves.

There’s absolutely no reason a woman can’t weld. I’m proof.

Yet as few as three per cent of UK welding jobs are filled by women. 

That’s shameful. And it’s also a major missed opportunity.

To fix the skills crisis, we cannot afford to ignore half the population. 

We need to change perceptions and open more doors because the talent is there. 

Yet whatever gender, attracting the talent is only half the problem, because Britain’s future won't be built by apprentices alone. 

It will be built by the people willing – and able – to teach them.

Melanie Stewart is founder of Northumberland-based welding firm AdMel

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