Sector Skills Agreement

The Construction SSA comprises a series of collaborative agreements between construction employers, training providers and Government to address key skills issue in the industry.

Find out more about the challenges we are facing in the construction industry.

Our Priorities

Productivity Challenge – supporting employer and industry competitiveness

• Qualifying the workforce, upskilling existing workers to raise qualification levels and increase effectiveness
• Improving health, safety and welfare awareness and behaviours, and levels of competence on site
• Understanding and addressing employers’ business skills needs, supporting short term survival and longer term prosperity

Low Carbon Challenge – supporting industry’s future skills needs

• Building knowledge on industry’s future skills needs and translating this into practical solutions
• Working in partnership across the UK, Professional and Built Environment sectors on low carbon issues, to maximise influence over policy and funding for future skills

Leadership Challenge – providing industry leadership on skills and leadership training for employers

• Working with employers and their representative bodies, professional bodies, trade unions, delivery partners, clients, other SSCs and related bodies to develop an integrated approach
• Leveraging our authoritative research data to influence Government policy on industry’s behalf
• Understanding and addressing employers’ leadership and management skills needs

Recruitment Challenge – keeping the pipeline of talent flowing

• Promoting and delivering apprenticeships and pathways, influencing the construction-related curriculum, and supporting undergraduates in partnership with stakeholders
• Providing information, advice and guidance on qualifications and careers to potential recruits and their influencers
• Actively promoting diversity and equal opportunities

Employer Engagement Challenge – recognising and responding to skills needs

• Promoting the benefits of investing in training and development
• Diagnosing skills needs and providing or signposting solutions
• Extending our reach – particularly with SMEs, consultancies and trade bodies, and through working with employer groups

Education and Training Challenge – working with providers to deliver ‘right skills, right place, right time’

• Demonstrating and utilising an authoritative understanding of skills provision to influence funding decisions
• Working with providers across the learning lifecycle to ensure industry’s current and future skills needs are met through the supply of sufficient, affordable and quality provision
• Developing accreditation schemes to give confidence to our employers about education and training provision