Can EDI initiatives help to solve the skills gap?

Equality, diversity and inclusion has, until very recently, been seen as a vital part of business. In fact, no self-respecting organisation would be seen without it – and there is a good reason for that, Denise Chevin discovers.

Are you struggling to recruit a new site engineer? What about a project manager or structural engineer? If you are not, you might be soon. Skills shortages are particularly acute in the engineering and technology sectors. This is evidenced by engineering vacancies, which account for one in four job adverts despite comprising one in five jobs overall, according to EngineeringUK. Meanwhile, the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) says that we need at least 250,000 extra workers by 2028.

As the UK government mobilises policy to build 1.5 million homes in the next five years, expand the electricity networks to transition to net zero by 2030 and retrofit millions of homes to improve energy efficiency, there is rightly a concern that this ambition will be stalled by a skills crisis.

The government is accompanying its growth ambitions with a raft of new initiatives to boost skills, including changes to apprenticeships and setting up new skills hubs led by Skills England, and is supporting the development of ‘priority sector’ plans as part of the Industrial Strategy.

It should be noted that this is not simply a drive focused on England. For example, a £1.2m investment from Senedd Cymru will expand the HiVE (High Value Engineering) Hub programme. Jack Sargeant MS, Welsh Minister for Culture, Skills and Social Partnership, says: “As a former engineer myself, the opportunities and skills on offer at these innovative HiVE Hubs would have been a game-changer for me.”

In Scotland, the CITB, Skills Development Scotland and ESP Scotland are just three of the organisations providing training and upskilling opportunities. The CITB’s ‘Hub South West Scotland’ is a good example of how local SMEs are being encouraged to access £500m of construction investment and create training and job opportunities in the process.

Northern Ireland, meanwhile, is served by several initiatives to boost skills through academic institutions, the CITB and the Royal Academy of Engineering, which offers an ‘Enterprise hub’. However it is the new Civil Engineering Skills Academy that stands out as a direct response by the Northern Ireland Executive to a significant skills shortage. “The academy is part of a cross-government effort addressing a skills shortage exacerbated by recent political and economic challenges,” notes the Department for Infrastructure.

So the skills and training hubs are one part of the solution. A comprehensive plan for STEM education that includes improving careers provision, properly supporting T Levels, addressing STEM teacher shortages and growing engineering and technology apprenticeships is another.

But there is also a third – equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

Attracting talent

EngineeringUK says the lack of diversity in the workforce curbs growth. There is a need to shift the gender balance, attract more people from different ethnic backgrounds and give greater opportunity to those with disabilities and neurodivergence as part of the solution to attracting more talent. The Construction Industry Council (CIC) notes: “Although professional institutions are working hard to make industry more diverse, appealing and representative, the construction industry on the whole has a diversity problem.”

The latest detailed employment data from the Office of National Statistics showed that women accounted for 15.2% of the UK construction workforce at the end of 2024, up on 2014 when it was 11.7%. Of this figure, women make up just 1.6% of skilled trades (1.3% in 2014) and 26% in technical and professional roles (compared with 23% in 2014). Women accounted for 13% of directors and senior management in 2024, slightly lower than the 13.7% a decade ago. EngineeringUK figures reveal the proportion of women working in engineering and technology roles has declined in the past year from 16.5% to 15.7%, with a decline concentrated among women aged 35 to 44.

In terms of race diversity, the CIC says 5.4% of the construction workforce is made up of people with a Black, South Asian or minority ethnic background compared to around 13.8% of the UK population. Representation diminishes at senior levels and 1% of directors and senior managers are Black or South Asian. The engineering and technology sector fares better as a percentage of workforce, with 12% of the workforce coming from UK minority ethnic groups, compared with 16% in other occupations, but there is still much room for improvement.

Meanwhile, in 2023, National Federation of Builders’ research found that 25% of construction workers identify as neurodiverse. By 2024, the Association for Project Management found that 46% of professionals in the construction sector described themselves as neurodivergent. However, 7% preferred not to say, which suggests there is a stigma (see Neurodivergence in construction).

“The lack of diversity in the engineering and technology workforce is undermining its ability to grow and to harness the diversity of thought so important for innovation in this sector,” says James Gordon, Public Affairs Advisor at EngineeringUK.

“As well as impacting the productivity and relevance of engineering and technology activities, this lack of diversity creates a significant societal inequity, limiting the ability of people from certain demographic groups to access jobs that are in demand and roughly a third higher paid than average.”

EDI for growth

Dr Nike Folayan, a chartered engineer and Chair of the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers, which campaigns for more ethnic diversity in UK engineering, echoes Gordon’s sentiments. She says: “I believe that more diverse groups lead to better innovation, and this is shown by research by the Royal Academy of Engineering. It signifies that a wider range of perspectives and backgrounds within an engineering team leads to a greater capacity for creative problem-solving and innovative ideas.”

Sandi Rhys Jones, a Past President of the Chartered Institute of Building and long-term advocate of women in construction, says that women are certainly more visible in the industry today – not least through the number of presidents and CEOs running professional bodies, and also the fact that there are more young women coming into the professions. But she feels that the industry could be doing more to attract and retain them.

“Firstly, we’re not very good in construction at demonstrating the various routes that you can take to build a career in the industry. It has always been very driven by the idea that you study engineering, or you study surveying, and then you become chartered. However, a lot of the skills we need can be from any discipline, and there’s some work to do there.”

Rhys Jones would like to see firms take on more people with related degrees such as geography and economics who could then be trained in specialist construction knowledge. She also thinks more needs to be done to retain more mid-career women by offering greater opportunity for flexible working for those returning from maternity leave or caring for elderly parents. “Instead of coming back they just go off and retrain to do something else that allows them to more easily combine family life and career,” she says. The figures from EngineeringUK suggest the industry has a problem retaining women – more are entering as graduates, but then fall off later. 

Glass ceilings

Jessica Taylor, a Construction and Engineering Partner at law firm Ashfords and Chair of Diversitas (an umbrella body set up to increase representation of top Black professionals within CIC networks and the built environment), says that although there appears to be greater diversity at the graduate and apprenticeship entry levels, there is still a block on career progression to senior levels. She raises the question of whether there is still unconscious bias at play in the sector. So while having women and those from ethnic minorities is seen as being great at junior levels, when it comes to leadership, the default is to pick the same people who have traditionally been in charge of projects and companies.

Folayan also notes under-representation at senior levels. “I would say things are better in terms of recruiting as there is more awareness. But if you look at the industry and who the leaders are, it becomes evident that a lot more could be done in terms of both retention and progression.

“I also think how and where opportunities are advertised are still very limited. So is the flexibility in the way careers are tailored. The new generation expects diversity in roles and the opportunity to evolve into other roles. This is still lacking in an industry that takes a more traditional approach to career development.”

Neurodivergence in construction

There is a growing recognition of the contribution of neurodivergent people in engineering and construction. Their diversity of thinking provides strength, such as by boosting innovation.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology estimated in 2022 that there were up to 820,000 neurodivergent engineers in the UK, and that up to 30% of the engineering workforce is dyslexic – three times the rate found in the general population.

Another study conducted by the National Federation of Builders (NFB), in collaboration with the Construction Industry Training Board and People’s Partnership, found that a quarter of construction workers identify as neurodivergent – a rate higher than the national average of 14% in the UK.

One-third of neurodivergent workers stated that their condition had made them want to work in construction. 80% of respondents who had informed their employer that they had a neurodivergent condition reported that the employer had made reasonable adjustments to accommodate their needs. However, one-third of neurodivergent workers have not disclosed their condition at work, with concerns about stigma and embarrassment being significant factors.

The report calls for tailored training programs to foster inclusive work environments where neurodiverse employees can thrive.

Read the NFB’s study at b.link/NFB_neurodiversity

Why does it matter?

Reports such as PwC’s Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Survey make a clear business case for EDI. Companies in every sector are stronger, more resilient, more innovative and more profitable when their workforces, at all levels, mirror the customers they serve. Moreover, there is a moral imperative to ensure EDI, though that is harder to quantify. What is clear is that with such a significant skills gap in the construction and engineering industry, it is vital to seize every opportunity to attract and retain talent.

One development that could attract a more diverse cohort is the digitisation of the sector, which creates the need for different types of skills. “The adoption of digital is going to be a game-changer in the context of diverse talent pools” says Dr Bola Abisogun OBE, Founder and CEO at the Digital Twin Skills Academy. “AI is disrupting existing workflows. And the people who are struggling with this disruption are the incumbent, more mature professionals in the sector. The next generation are having to understand and embrace these new tools as a way of life, which creates a really interesting dynamic that then can become part of the business evolution or digital transformation piece in construction.”

Abisogun cites the example of the ‘Golden Thread’, a new requirement under the Building Safety Act 2022 for a digital record of all design and construction information of higher-rise building projects to be kept and handed over to the client. “The adoption of digital ways of working is a complete paradigm shift for the industry and everyone must feed into that. The working environment is not just about traditional construction any more.

“Even though we have diversified the talent pool at entry level, retention and appreciation of value in the person is still a huge challenge. And what can the businesses do in that space? They’ve got to tap into their young people and understand their ambitions.”

Does EDI have a future?

All those interviewed raise concerns about what they see as deeply worrying developments in the US, where the Donald Trump administration has scrapped its own EDI programmes and is refusing to give contracts to those with them. How might this impact what multinationals do in the UK? “Only last week, GSK (a biopharma company with ‘big ambitions to unite science, technology and talent’) announced that it was stopping all of its EDI programmes because it has so many customers in the States and it doesn’t want to be seen as woke,” says Rhys Jones.

She continues: “It is really quite serious. I’m concerned that all the progress we’ve made in making it perfectly sensible to talk about becoming more inclusive – widening the talent pool, the whole issue around meritocracy – is under threat again. This is very dispiriting because I think we were beginning to do well.”

Folayan concludes: “The industry needs to consider what inclusion can do for them – not only as a moral imperative, but also what innovation this can generate. This also needs to be supported by governmental frameworks that value inclusion and diversity, and not just from a position of outreach.”

In short, EDI offers the chance for the industry to not only solve the skills shortage, but to grow in strength, capability and scope by being more welcoming to all. 

PWC’s Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Survey b.link/PwC_DEIsurvey

Image credit | iStock