Abstract
Climate change mitigation requires concerted policy and action across all economic sectors. Buildings account for a significant part of energy use and CO2 emissions worldwide. Even if all new buildings had zero environmental impact, the problem remains that large-scale transformation is needed across millions of existing buildings and energy service infrastructure. A competent workforce is needed for installation, repair and maintenance over time.
This seminar reports the findings of commissioned research for the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) as it prepares the first-ever Sector Skills Plan for the sub-sector of Repair, Maintenance & Improvement in existing homes across Great Britain.
Using a combination of literature reviews, stakeholder meetings and semi-structured interviews, the system for vocational education and training is describe in relation to the challenge of preparing the workforce for building market transformation.
The system is characterised by fragmentation, short-term thinking, and diverging governance arrangements between England, Scotland and Wales. In specific circumstances, government finance is conditional on training, but the larger market operates in a low-skills equilibrium, where low educational attainment is matched by low prestige and low wages.
Three sets of recommendations are made: firstly, for the committee setting priorities for training funding in the short term; secondly, for the governance of CITB; and thirdly, for national and devolved policy-making.
Speaker biographies
Dr Gavin Killip (Independent research consultant, Honorary Research Associate of SKOPE) – Gavin has over 20 years’ experience in academic research, working with policy, industry and community stakeholders to improve sustainability in the built environment. He takes an inter-disciplinary approach to finding solutions that investigate technology adoption in its wider socio-economic and policy context.
Dr Marina Topouzi (Senior Researcher, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford) – Marina is an interdisciplinary researcher specialising in building energy use, retrofit, and the socio-technical challenges of the energy transition. Her work spans building performance, technical innovation, user behaviour, and retrofit policy, with a strong focus on how institutions, skills systems, and governance shape real-world outcomes.