The UK construction sector needs one million additional workers by 2032. Salford alone had 370 NEET young people in 2024.
I started investigating why the gap persists. What I found wasn’t a skills shortage. It was a £36 lock on the gate.
The Construction Skills Certification Scheme card isn’t legally required to work on UK construction sites. But most principal contractors won’t let you through without one. It costs £36 to obtain—just the testing fee for the Health, Safety and Environment exam.
For someone unemployed, that’s rent money. Food money. The difference between applying for work and staying locked out.
Here’s what makes this absurd: the UK training infrastructure is massive. City & Guilds qualifications, NVQ Level 2 diplomas, bricklaying programmes, electrical installation courses. The Construction Industry Training Board coordinates funding and accreditation across hundreds of providers. Colleges run fast-track programmes. Private centers offer intensive week-long courses. Apprenticeships combine on-site experience with classroom learning.
You can complete an entire Level 2 Carpentry course. Pass your Health and Safety certification. Demonstrate practical competence. None of it gets you on site without that card.
I found three categories of UK construction training: short-term certifications (CSCS, PASMA scaffolding, asbestos awareness), trade qualifications (NVQs in bricklaying, plumbing, electrical work), and apprenticeship routes. Government schemes fund some. CITB grants cover others. College budgets handle more. The system produces qualified workers.
Then blocks them at the gate over £36.
Dave Mayer, Chief Officer at Broughton Trust in Salford, sees the pattern. “Regardless of any qualification from college, you still need a CSCS card to work in construction,” he told me. “It will help massively, because we are removing another barrier.”
The Trust is offering free CSCS courses on November 19-20, 2025. Unemployed individuals aged 18+ with the right to work in the UK. Full test preparation. No £36 fee. Training delivered within an 8-mile radius because geography matters when you’re unemployed and transportation costs money.
Most construction courses require travel to specific training centers or college campuses. That’s another barrier, particularly in areas with limited public transport. The Trust brings the training to the community instead of demanding the community find a way to the training.
What struck me: they’re not competing with existing training providers or creating another qualification. They’re identifying where the system inadvertently excludes people who should qualify and removing that obstacle.
Someone completes a bricklaying course at their local college but can’t afford the CSCS card. Locked out. Someone works construction for years but never got the formal certification contractors now require. Locked out. The skills exist. The demand exists. The barrier is administrative.
Certification requirements serve legitimate purposes—safety standards matter. But when certification functions as economic gatekeeping rather than competence verification, the system breaks down. You’re not blocking unqualified workers. You’re blocking workers who can’t afford to prove they’re qualified.
The construction industry desperately needs workers. Training infrastructure exists to produce them. Communities have people ready to work. The gap between them is a £36 card that unemployed people can’t afford and employed people never think about.
That’s not a skills shortage. That’s a system that locks out the people it needs most.