Heritage and Traditional Skills Plan Launching Today

A new Sector Skills Plan for the Repair, Maintenance and Improvement (RMI) Heritage and Traditional Build sector has been launched.

The plan will be unveiled today at the National Federation of Builders’ (NFB) Heritage and Traditional Build conference. The conference is taking place at Painters’ Hall, the 16^th century home of the Worship Company of Painter-Stainers, making it the ideal location for the plan’s launch. The conference will bring together employers, industry bodies and training providers to address skills challenges in the UK’s historic built environment.

Led by the NFB and developed with employers, industry groups, education providers, and heritage organisations, the plan identifies five priority areas where collaborative action is needed:

• workforce development
• sector leadership
• training provision
• net zero and climate change
• procurement

These areas affect pathways into heritage construction careers, but employers are continuing to face challenges in recruiting and developing workers with the specialist and technical skills needed to carry out restorations, conservation, and maintenance work.

The plan is designed to ensure the heritage construction sector has the workforce, training provision and leadership needed to meet current and future demand, while protecting the specialist skills required to maintain and restore historic buildings.

Sector Skills Plans

The RMI (Heritage and Traditional Build) Sector Skills Plan forms part of CITB’s wider programme of Sector Skills Plans, designed to address workforce challenges. Three plans have already been launched, covering homebuilding, infrastructure and RMI (domestic retrofit), with the heritage plan the latest.

James M. Butcher, Deputy Chief Executive of the NFB, and the industry chair of the plan, said: “With one in five homes and one in three commercial properties traditionally built, ensuring that we have a sufficient and competent workforce able to look after these buildings is essential and that is what this plan is all about. Whether it is repairing, maintaining, improving, renovating, restoring, retrofitting or adapting for the future, there is plenty of work to be done but not always the supply chain able to do it.

“This plan acts as a framework, setting out the key skills challenges facing our part of the sector and calling for action from across industry to help tackle them. Protecting heritage and traditional buildings for the future requires a lot of love and attention, and keeping heritage and traditional build skills alive does too.”

Live Programme

Alongside the launch of the plan, several initiatives are being launched, including:

• Upskilling travel support pilot – reimbursing eligible employees’ travel and accommodation costs (up to £335) to access specialist training unavailable locally
• Pipeline feasibility study – with Historic England, exploring whether greater visibility of future heritage work could help employers invest confidently in training
• NFB’s National Heritage Skills Forum – bringing industry voices together to strengthen sector leadership and coordination
• Skills and knowledge statements – supporting the development of heritage and traditional build occupations and competencies.

The RMI (Heritage and Traditional Build) Sector Skills Plan is intended to be a live programme of activity that evolves alongside the needs of the industry, ensuring employers can continue to shape the skills priorities as market conditions, technologies, and workforce requirements change.