CITB NI
“It is crucial that we develop stronger connections between educational institutions and industry and engage individuals across all sectors to raise awareness of construction career paths, attracting a diverse and skilled workforce to meet future industry needs.” ambassador programme, where we work with industry professionals to help promote construction careers in schools, careers fairs and conferences. Recently, we partnered with W5 and Cool FM to provide interactive job sampling onsite for year 10 and 12 pupils from across NI, highlighting pathways into apprenticeships and promoting apprenticeship employer opportunities. This event and others were supported with supplementary information on our careers web portal, www.citbni.org.uk/Careers We also deliver the SkillBuild NI Regional Competition, which showcases the brightest talent in construction within the further education and training sector. There is still much to do in joining up the various initiatives that support individuals in their progression into and through their career within the industry. This is at a time where the potential demands on infrastructure, construction and the wider built environment industry are mounting. The drive for greater energy efficiency and a net-zero carbon society is a significant challenge. This will require a balance of upskilling the existing workforce in parallel with developing new entrants with the skills and abilities needed for, not just the known future, over the next 20 years or so but also unknown future challenges.
W5 Build Your Career event.
Adopt A School event.
to review how it reflects industry needs and influences policy decisions within the departments and the NI Skills Council. We are also working with the Green Skills Delivery Group, tasked by the NI Skills Council to develop proposals on how to meet the skills challenges, not only within the construction sector, but also the energy generation and infrastructure sectors. In terms of widening the potential entry routes to construction, CITB NI has been working with NIACRO to develop interventions that encourage progression from the justice system into the construction sector, providing benefits for the individual, the economy and our industry. This has led to the development of virtual and augmented reality interventions that, now tested, can be developed and used in other areas such as careers information and taster sessions.
Through our ‘Build Your Career – a Future in Construction Programme’ for schools and students, we have been delivering construction ‘bootcamps’ for schools on our inhouse simulated site to provide meaningful experiences to those who have not yet decided on their career path. This initiative has the potential to be replicated across the province as a collaboration with construction companies, local partners and councils. In addition, our ‘Adopt A School Programme’ provides opportunities for construction companies to build relations with post-primary schools in their local area of work. Companies provide direct support for schools with construction industry careers activities including careers talks, events, work experience opportunities and site visits. We also have a careers
For further information on CITB NI, visit www.citbni.org.uk, Facebook @CITBNorthernIreland or follow the discussion on X @CITBNI, Instagram @citbni1 and LinkedIn @citb-ni
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