By In response to concerns raised over the state of the UK’s construction industry, the government has recently announced a new £72 million Core Innovation Hub investment boost, with the purpose of reducing the ever-growing skills gap brought on by the ageing workforce, according to UK Research and Innovation.
This new investment will come from the £170 million Transforming Construction challenge, which is part of the government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, currently being managed by UK Research and Innovation.
The construction industry hasn’t seen much innovation or progress in the past 40 years, which the government’s new investment aims to address. It aims to do this by overhauling the UK’s construction industry to increase productivity and deliver more residential and commercial properties.
The government’s Core Innovation Hub investment aims to transform the industry and improve the way buildings are created, which hasn’t changed in the past 40 years. With challenges such as an ever-growing skills gap brought on by the ageing workforce, the Core Innovation Hub has been designed to create desperately needed high-value jobs and to increase productivity across the sector through the use of technology.
The primary aims of the Core Innovation Hub investment are to build the construction industry’s supply chain, create more jobs to ensure the security of future residential and commercial buildings and introduce revolutionary technology, such as drones and new design software.
The government expressed hope that this will increase new industry knowledge and approaches to improve the current challenges being faced within the construction sector.
By encouraging the support of new research and development within the construction industry, with a particular focus on digital and offsite manufacturing, the Core Innovation Hub will help to modernise the industry by advancing 21st century approaches for the desperately needed building and construction of new residential homes across the UK, as well as new workplaces.
The government also aims to improve the current construction processes to increase on-site safety and productivity, as well as the implementation of standardised modular components, construction processes and techniques.
In order to achieve this, part of this new investment will be spent on training the UK workforce in new skills to help with diversification and to create more job opportunities. The Core Innovation Hub will set out to specifically encourage unemployed people back into work, with an emphasis on those who are disabled or homeless.
At the time of the government’s new announcement, the UK construction industry employs nearly 9 per cent of the UK workforce and is one of the largest sectors contributing to the economy. This equates to 3.1 million people. With the Core Innovation Hub investment, the government aims to increase this number further, to help ensure the future security of the construction industry, as the current workforce gradually phases out due to retirement.
The Core Innovation Hub investment was announced last week by the government. Sam Stacey, Challenge Director at UK Research and Innovation, commented: “We need to transform construction so that we can create affordable places to live and work that are safer, healthier and use less energy.
“By taking a lead in the UK, we can increase our ability to export. Global demand for efficient buildings is rising rapidly, driven by the pressures of urbanisation, affordability and the need to cut emissions.”
Delivering much-needed homes and commercial buildings in the UK
The government plans for The Core Innovation Hub is to transform the UK into global leaders within the construction industry, by using modern strategies and adopting new technology.
This new technology, such as the use of virtual reality technology, is expected to become standard practice on building sites across the UK, thereby transforming and modernising the country’s infrastructure.
This new technology has already been used to great success within other sectors, such as the automotive industry in the UK, but this will be a first for the construction industry. This new use of technology is expected to enable the sector to design and build homes much faster, more sustainably and to keep costs down.
Not only that but when future new homes and commercial buildings are completed, they will include smart sensors and digital systems within their infrastructure that will enable them to be maintained more easily. The data they will collect will provide the government and the construction industry with information on how to carry out improvements across towns and cities to ensure a better quality of life at work and in the home.
This was recently announced by Richard Harrington, Business and Industry Minister at the Building Research Establishment. He commented: “We have the opportunity to revolutionise construction in the UK and the Core Innovation Hub will help us build smarter, greener and more efficient buildings much faster and cheaper than we do now.
“From the introduction of virtual reality to off-site manufacturing, our modern Industrial Strategy (as detailed in the recent whitepaper) is helping the UK construction sector to develop new techniques and skills – modernising the sector and delivering the homes and buildings the nation needs.”
As the government has pledged to deliver more residential housing to help ease the UK’s housing crisis; this latest announcement will help bolster the government’s housing plan to create more sustainable buildings whilst improving the outlook of the UK’s construction industry.
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