40,000 People to Get Skills in New Technical Excellence Colleges

The Department for Education (DfE) has announced that more than 40,000 future tradespeople will receive training by 2029 to get Britain building through a £100 million investment in newly declared ‘Technical Excellence Colleges’. These specialist colleges will be in every region of England with the aim to deliver the workforce needed to turbocharge the building of new homes, schools and hospitals.

The DfE declares that this move will help deliver well-paid jobs for British workers, support the construction sector and deliver the Government’s commitment to build 1.5 million homes through its Plan for Change. This builds on the independent £625 million investment announced in March, which will separately be used to train up to 60,000 more skilled construction workers by 2029.

The new Construction Technical Excellence Colleges are: Derby College Group, East Midlands; West Suffolk College, East of England; New City College, Greater London; City of Sunderland College, North East; Wigan and Leigh College, North West; North Kent College, South East; Exeter College, South West; Bedford College, cross-regional; Dudley College of Technology, West Midlands; and Leeds College of Building, Yorkshire and the Humber.

These colleges will operate on a ‘hub and spoke’ model, working with local training providers and employers to boost training standards and share expertise and are designed to support the Government’s ‘Youth Guarantee’, which promises that every 18–21-year-old in England will have access to an apprenticeship, quality training and education opportunities or help to find a job. The announcement comes as young people across the country have received their results in A-levels, T Levels and a range of vocational qualifications.

New investments aim to address the issue that the UK does not have enough construction workers to start building more homes at the rate required, with figures from the Office for National Statistics showing around 35,000 job vacancies need to be plugged in the sector. A recent survey also found that the percentage of construction firms funding or offering training to their workers has fallen from 57% in 2011 to 49% in 2024.

Tim Balcon, Chief Executive of the Construction Industry Training Board, said: “It’s wonderful to see the progress being made towards establishing these Technical Excellence Colleges for Construction. They represent a transformative opportunity for people to complete local vocational training, helping to drive regional growth and nurture the next generation of skilled construction workers in local communities.

“This builds brilliantly on the wider £600 million construction skills package we’re delivering in partnership with government, helping create a robust pipeline of talent that will break down barriers to opportunity, delivering good jobs and powering economic growth across the UK.”