Local college say construction industry needs to be more inclusive
The Bedford College Group are one of ten colleges getting millions in government funds to train 40,000 new construction workers.
A Northamptonshire college say we all benefit from a more diverse work force in construction.
The Bedford College Group - who have campuses across Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire - have been given a share of £100 million from the government to train an extra 40,000 in the industry.
Currently there's a shortfall of 35,000 in the sector.
The college has campuses across Bedford, Biggleswade, Corby, Kettering, Silverstone and Wellingborough and along with 10 others will train British construction workers.
The Executive Director for Curriculum Robin Webber-Jones is hoping many may end up working on the Oxfordshire Cambridge corridor developments and the new Universal Studios Great Britain planned for Bedfordshire.
He says he hopes the college can change perceptions:
"I personally hope that the the technical Excellence College will have is about bringing greater diversity to the workforce.
"So actually the quantity surveyors, technical architectural work, are under represented by different groups, females for example. So it's how can we, you know, create the conditions where we can make things even more inclusive."
He says the industry must not miss out on half the work force, as he says construction hasn't always appealed to women:
"There's a lot of literature and research around this and there was a report that was written, called Modernise or Die, which was all about the barriers that females and other groups face when entering the construction sector.
"We've always needed construction. We'll always need it. There's always been a kind of shortage of people going into it, really. And what this report said was we can't cut ourselves off to potentially 50% of the workforce."
He says one way things need to change is in how the industry advertises itself:
"So there was quite a large scale project that was funded through the Office for Students and the previous Higher Education Funding Council for England, that described how lots of advertising for roles in construction were very male orientated.
"So actually people weren't able to see themselves in the construction sector. They weren't, you know, that kind of people like me stories, they weren't there. And so that's some work that I think we all need to do collectively recognising that actually the more people do it and the greater diversity that exists in the workforce, the better that will be for everybody in the in the long run."
Each year the college currently trains around 25,000 people.