How to Close the Retrofit Skills Gap

New Training Facilities Signal Potential

Across England, new training facilities are opening as FE colleges anticipate rising demand for retrofit and sustainable building skills. In these facilities, learners can get hands-on experience using different insulation materials, learn to fit solar panels and how to install heat pumps.

It’s great to see these upgraded facilities because they are a signal of what an ambitious, coordinated approach to retrofit skills could look like. These facilities would be fully booked – with 16-19 year old learners on full-time construction courses getting skilled up on the latest techniques and technologies at the outset of their careers; apprentices making the most of their one day a week at college, bringing valuable up-to-date knowledge back to their companies; experienced construction workers upskilling at times that suit them; community and schools visiting, so they can see what retrofitting involves and learn about ‘green’ careers in this fast-growing sector.

The Scale of the Challenge

We need this injection of energy and momentum behind retrofit skills because the Climate Change Committee has said that virtually all buildings in the UK need to be decarbonised by 2050. In England alone, that includes most of our 25 million homes. It is a huge task, that could employ over 250,000 additional workers by the Committee’s estimates. But there will be huge upsides to getting it right – creating good jobs in every community, making our homes more comfortable, reducing our energy bills, improving our health and wellbeing, reducing burdens on the NHS, and increasing energy security. And – of course – eliminating the 20% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from our buildings which are causing dangerous climate change.

Current Challenges

Unfortunately, in my latest research, Closing the Retrofit Gap, I found that despite the best efforts of colleges, nothing like the necessary numbers of people were training in retrofit skills in 2024. Even some of the best equipped colleges were struggling to recruit learners. Without the income from courses, colleges can’t recruit and retain tutors. During my research, I found one training facility was doubling up as an exam hall. Why is this?

From analysing the 2023 Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs) and the 2024 LSIP Progress Reports, it’s clear that construction employers did not yet understand the need for these skills, and were not intending to take up training. At best, they preferred very short, often online courses. This makes some sense from an individual business point of view – until there is more pressing demand for these skills, and a realistic chance of recouping the loss of earnings while attending training, it doesn’t make sense to invest in them.

Risks and Consequences

But as the government’s Warm Homes retrofitting scheme rolls out at increasing scale, at the same time as major new housebuilding efforts, this means there is a serious risk – one that has already bedevilled previous government retrofitting schemes – that the skilled workforce they need won’t be available. And proceeding with a workforce that does not have the right training and skills increases the risk of poor outcomes. Recently, the government had to cancel the contracts of 39 firms for poor quality delivery on the ECO4 and GBIS schemes. Some of the stories of residents whose homes have been ruined are truly heartbreaking. As one of my research interviewees said, cowboy builders is the worst thing that could happen to retrofit.

Solutions and Recommendations

It is a worrying picture, but one that is fixable. What is urgently needed is better coordination between all the key actors, particularly at the policy level. As Warm Homes and other schemes roll out, to ensure residents are protected, we should mandate relevant training for all retrofit professionals working on them, much as we already do for Gas Safe gas engineers.

It is good news that some additional construction skills funding has been trailed ahead of the budget to support the government’s housebuilding agenda, but we know that unless these homes are built to higher sustainability standards that they too will require retrofitting later on. There is a chance right now to get it right from the outset, setting higher standards for developers and using this as an impetus to boost the number of trained heat pump installers, for example.

More widely, we urgently need to update all construction-related qualifications and apprenticeship standards to begin raising awareness and skills across the whole industry, so that it is fit for the low-carbon future. 

By Charlotte Ravenscroft, Author of “Closing the Retrofit Skills Gap“