Plans to tackle major shortage of building apprentices

With a significant skills shortage set to cripple the construction trade within four years, the industry has entered talks with the Government and trade unions on a new apprenticeship programme to encourage people to take up training posts in the sector.

Up to the end of June, just four people had started plastering apprenticeships around the country; three had begun apprentice positions learning brick and stone laying; and another three had started their apprenticeships as painters.

Nobody has taken a tiling apprenticeship since 2012. When the sector was booming in the middle of the last decade, more than 1,000 people were registered for apprenticeships in those four “wet” trades alone in the space of just one year.