Hull and Humber-wide residents hoping to find local construction-based employment now have more opportunities to get the skills and experience they need thanks to the Humber Construction Hub based in Bransholme.
First opened in October 2019, the Humber Construction Hub (HCH) was designed to address the skills deficit in the construction and built environment sector by providing ‘real life’ construction training and experience.
HCH is supported by a £230,000 contribution from the Local Growth Fund, secured by the Humber LEP as part of the Government’s commitment to the Northern Powerhouse.
By collaborating with quality training providers in the region, HCH has provided a range of training courses that support the construction industry, helping to grow local talent and fill vacant roles. There will be an estimated 25,000 job opportunities for local people to fill in the next five years (CITB, 2018), and training centres such as the Humber Construction Hub can help people prepare for those roles.
To date the Humber Construction Hub has delivered over 1,000 Level 1, 2 and 3 qualifications, with a further 1,400+ employability interventions (including mentoring and work experience). Through the Hub 267 people have been supported into construction positions across the Humber region.
In the Post-Covid-19 world, the Hub will continue to help people gain a ‘passport into construction’ that enables them to enter into work on any live building site, helping to tackle the forecasted skill and labour shortages, while also contributing to Hull City Council’s Housing Growth Plan that identifies the skills and employability needed to improve the capacity to deliver up to 56,000 new residences by 2032.
- The Hub is managed by social enterprise EN:Able Futures CIC, an operating company owned by Efficiency North Holdings Limited, who provide construction based apprenticeship and training opportunities in Northern England, employing apprentices directly and working with industry partners such as Hull City-Wide Partnership and Hull City Council to find suitable placements. Since 2017 EN:Able Futures has helped nearly 700 people find employment.
The Humber Construction Hub also acts as a training centre of excellence from which further smaller training hubs could be developed within the Humber region in collaboration with construction industry partners to support localised labour needs in those areas, such as Goole and Grimsby.
Lee Parkinson, Chief Executive of Efficiency North, said: “EN:Able Futures’ position in this important initiative continues the company's expansion into the provision of high-quality training and apprenticeships through a site-based construction learning hub. Our relationships with the construction supply chain will complement the delivery model and our experience in managing the region's shared apprenticeship scheme will assure the quality of the training provided. We are very much looking forward to welcoming new learners to the construction hub in Hull and we hope that it will be the first of others that we develop in the region and beyond.”
Stephen Savage, Chair of the Humber LEP’s Employment and Skills Board, said: “We are very pleased to see the Humber Construction Hub now up and running, delivering high quality training in a realistic working environment. Building on our close working relationship with the Construction Industry Training Board, the LEP has published detailed research demonstrating the need for more qualified construction workers in many disciplines in our region. We have used the Local Growth Fund skills capital investments to enable these valuable additional training opportunities across the Humber.”
