In just over a week, at the Tower of London on 31 January 2017, BuildForce will officially “Go Live” and declare itself “open for business.” BuildForce is a UK-wide, collaborative, employer-led initiative helping address construction skills shortages by identifying vacancies and offering targeted training and mentoring to military service leavers and veterans.
In the run-up to this landmark, the BuildForce team has produced a short video explaining what the project aims to achieve, featuring speakers from four of the construction businesses involved in setting up the programme.
The seven founding partners – Carillion, CITB, Crossrail, EY, Lendlease, Morgan Sindall and Wilson James – formed the initial steering group for this initiative, which is part-funded by the CITB Structured & Flexible Funds. However, the BuildForce Alliance has already more than doubled in size as word has spread about the opportunity to help former armed services personnel find rewarding careers in the construction and built environment sectors.
The BuildForce project addresses a real industry challenge, as steering group chair Andy Parker says:
“UK construction needs to find over 220,000 new workers by 2019. With 120,000 ex-services personnel currently without work in the UK and around 14,000 more leaving the services annually, BuildForce aims to smooth the military-to-construction transition.”
Ethos is proud to be one of the BuildForce delivery partners and leads on project management, industry and forces engagement.