Construction industry expected to grow according to industry body

A 3.9% growth in public housing each year is expected for the 2018-2022 period, with private housing growing at 2.9%.

The Winchburgh Village Development in West Lothian and the Countesswells Housing Development in Aberdeen are examples of live projects during the five year forecast.

Expansion in the industry, the CITB says, is being driven by the Scottish Government's target to build 50,000 new affordable homes by 2021.

Repair and maintenance of existing buildings is also scheduled to grow, with a year on year average rise of 2.6%, and 1.7% for non-housing related work.

Ian Hughes, partnership director at CITB Scotland, said: The forecast for Scottish construction sees a stable five years to 2022.

"It is encouraging to see strong growth for housing in particular."

All sectors, apart from infrastructure, commercial and public non-housing, are expected to grow with 10,650 new construction workers needed to meet demand, the Construction Skills Network (CSN) report says.

Construction output in Scotland is projected to be stable during 2018-2022, at 0.1% average annual growth per year.

The report shows falls in infrastructure work will be mitigated by growth in most of the remaining sectors.

A small drop in overall employment of 0.7% per year is expected over the five-year period.

But Scotland needs thousands of new workers because of an ageing workforce and there is a demand for supervisors, logistics and civil engineers in the trade.

Mr Hughes added: "With over 10,000 new workers needed over the next five years, there remain excellent, rewarding career opportunities in construction.

"Our modern apprenticeship programme in Scotland continues to go from strength to strength, with over 5000 apprentices currently being trained.

"We want to support firms in Scotland to take on more apprentices, to upskill their workforce, and to champion construction as a rewarding lifelong career.