In the next five years, housing associations and local authorities across London could be short of the thousands of people they need to look after existing properties, and build new homes – a challenge we’re joining forces with other industry players to tackle.
We are proud to form part of the London Homes Coalition, a partnership of major housing associations, contractors and specialist providers, whose pipeline alone will represent around 10% of London’s construction workforce demand. We’re working together to ensure we maintain a highly skilled workforce to continue investing in high-quality homes for all.
Due to the synergies within the renewable energy and heat networks industry, where we’ve seen the scaling up of heat networks and the introduction of heat network zoning, we’ve begun to address the need to upskill the green workforce of the future. This is the perfect opportunity to share key learnings and make an impact together.
Strategy and Partnerships Director, Elliott Sharpe, represents Vital within the Coalition, so we asked him some questions about the goal of the initiative, why we wanted to be involved, how we’re doing our bit to help, and more.
Why did Vital Energi want to be part of this initiative?
We work with many councils and housing associations across the country, and as a key supply chain partner, we want to help them identify and combat the challenges they’re facing. Not only do our core values align with their mission, we’re facing similar skills gap and labour shortage issues in our own industry, so when we saw the opportunity to join forces and share key learnings, it was a no brainer.
What is the aim of the London Homes Coalition?
The UK social housing sector spends billions of pounds improving and maintaining homes every year, adding substantial value to communities, supporting jobs and driving economic growth and productivity. However, their ability to provide and maintain affordable housing across the capital is threatened by what is fast becoming a critical skills and labour shortage.
The Coalition has launched the Building Skills for the Future report, which identifies the critical risk to the maintenance, retrofit and provision of London’s social and affordable housing.
The purpose of the overall project is to understand the scale of the demand for asset management and investment works over the next few years, identify the potential skills gaps, and design and deliver solutions working together as a sector in close partnership with Government, industry bodies, and education providers.
What kind of content does the report contain?
First up, there’s a detailed data analysis of the consolidated work programmes of London’s major housing associations for the next 5-10 years, and the future workforce demand and the resulting skills gap.
The report also highlights a range of potential solutions to the skills gaps, including collaborative action on outreach and promotion, training and skills development, operations and procurement, and workforce policies and culture, along with a high-level plan for how to progress the identified solutions.
Can you share any key findings from the report?
What are the key drivers of increasing labour and skills demand?
As a company, how are we doing our bit to help bridge the skills gap?
Here at Vital, we ensure diversity and inclusion is firmly embedded within our culture and operations. From championing our female workforce at our annual Women in Energi event, sponsoring the District Heating Divas and being a core member of the Diverse Heat Network, to encouraging an inclusive working environment and promoting equal opportunities for all employees, we are dedicated to fostering a workplace where diversity thrives.
As well as attending careers fairs to promote jobs within the green industry, we deliver Climate Education sessions within schools, and have so far reached 16,800 young people across 108 schools, colleges and universities. We plan and deliver training for employees and upskill industry organisations within our £2m Training Academy, and have developed our own bespoke Net Zero Apprenticeship Scheme.
We work closely with Government at local, regional and national levels and are at the centre of funding and policy discussions alongside the ADE and UKDEA, and are on the Board for the Heat Networks Industry Council (HeatNIC).
We increase awareness of the sector through attending and exhibiting at trade shows and events, and via our social media channels, and are able to promote certainty of work pipelines through our ESCo and O&M contracts, some of which span 40 years.
What are the next steps?
Have a look at the graphic below which explains how we’re going to move the initiative forwards and address the challenges highlighted within the report.
Click here for more information about the London Homes Coalition: https://www.londonhomescoalition.co.uk
