ConstructionSkills launches Academy

ConstructionSkills has launched its National Skills Academy, a network of work-based learning centres that should create 10,000 local jobs via apprenticeships and see 100,000 experienced workers gain NVQ levels 2 or 3.

The Academy, which will be established at all significant construction sites, will cover all nine English regions, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by 2010, with 30 sites planned on projects worth more than £30bn.

The creation of the scheme comes in response to the ConstructionSkills Network Report 2006, which forecasted an average of 87,000 recruits would be needed every year for at least the next five years to meet expected demand in construction.

[Contract Journal, 26 November 2006, p 2]