Lack of new blood in the construction industry of the North

I WAS written before about the current state of the construction industry, especially in our region, and the lasting impact it would go forward. Last week, the Universities & Colleges Accepting Service (UCAS) released figures showing that the number of students applying to study architecture courses in universities has decreased significantly compared to this time in last year. In the past month, with only 26,821 applications for architecture courses, a decrease of 12% from a year ago. Of course, the figure for building and planning fell by 22% and 14% respectively in the order, with only four groups of subjects studied faring poorly. There are several reasons behind the declining numbers, increasing student fees and the poor state of the labor market on the two key factors. Practice in our industry, such as architecture, can take up to seven years and requires a substantial financial commitment and time of the students. This, along with poor job prospects expected by the number of industry bodies, meaning more hindered students entering our industry. It seems that students are forced to be a little more prudent with their level of choice, with children choosing courses that do not cost more and have better job prospects at the end. To encourage growth and to move forward, we, as an industry need to do more to encourage young people to create the future. Our industry will be one of the forefront of change and innovation, and to do this, we need creativity and attitude of young people today. Our Generation for Change (G4C) forum, for example, is all about identifying new arrivals in construction and encourage them to collaborate, develop and promote best practices to improve the much needed growth in this sector it. The annual Construction Skills Network report, carried out by CITB-ConstructionSkills in partnership with a number of construction employers from across the UK, a recent five-year forecasts to calculate the industry suggest that we should start to see the some growth in 2013. Weather Forecasts like this should be published, children shows that the industry is in a more settled by the time they graduate.