Bricklaying, site supervisor and surveying apprentices welcomed HRH The Princess Royal to officially open the National House Building Council’s (NHBC) new apprenticeship training hub in Cambridge.
The NHBC training hub, adjacent to the Histon Football Club, Impington, can train 80 apprentices all year round, enabling them to qualify in as little as 14 months.
The facility, equipped with classrooms, welfare and catering facilities, provides apprentices with a realistic outdoor working environment and is initially focusing on bricklaying.
At the opening today (Thursday, 25 April), the princess met with bricklaying apprentices who demonstrated the various stages needed to build a house and emphasised the need to encourage more people into house building, with bricklaying being an excellent pathway into a rewarding and well-paid career.
The Princess Royal used a trowel to cut a house-shaped cake on a visit to officially open the training hub.
Her Royal Highness wore a white hard hat and yellow hi-vis jacket as she spoke to young apprentices at the facility.
The NHBC, which provides warranty and insurance for new homes, set up the hub as part of efforts to address the skills shortage in the housebuilding sector.
The princess arrived by helicopter and was shown around the outdoor learning space, which had a series of partially-built brick structures on a concrete slab where apprentices were honing their craft.
After she spoke to scores of apprentices, she unveiled a plaque and was then asked to cut the roof of an ornately constructed house-shaped cake.
”Now I normally describe cutting special cakes as legalised vandalism,” she said.
“This is particularly true in this case and can only be done on the understanding you will eat it, preferably today.”
Tawona Mativi, 29, from Cambridge, and a bricklaying apprentice with GSQ brickwork at the training hub, said it was “a privilege” to meet The Princess Royal.
“I was discouraged by my teachers at school from pursuing an apprenticeship,” he said. “Some people have the mindset that you must go to university to succeed, but you can make something of yourself in house building by getting an apprenticeship.
“If I had that time over again, I would have done this apprenticeship at the NHBC training hub straight out of school.
“The trainers at the NHBC training hub are experts and I’m learning while earning. The mix of practical and theoretical learning, combined with regularly applying my training on site, is excellent.
“I’m focused on getting my qualification and working my way up to a supervisor role. People don’t always realise a bricklayer can earn on average £50k per year and the house building industry offers excellent career pathways.
“Closing the skills gap is a great opportunity for me as there is a skills shortage which means I can make a difference and earn a good wage.”
Toby Egan, 23, a former goalkeeper for Ipswich Town Football Club and a bricklaying apprentice with Taylor Wimpey at the training hub, added: “Meeting HRH The Princess Royal has inspired me even more to get my bricklaying qualification.
“After being let go by Ipswich Town FC, I felt gutted. I’d trained with the club since I was 12 years old and suddenly my whole future was over.
“I had no path forward. I would say to people wanting to change career to embrace it. The trainers at the NHBC training hub are so knowledgeable and treat me as an adult, which was a big thing for me coming into this.
“The NHBC training hub has a really good set-up. All the tools and equipment are what you use on site, and I’m learning to build to NHBC’s standards, which is brilliant as they are the best when it comes to house building.
“I have a young son and I’m learning a skill to pass on to future generations while getting a bricklaying apprenticeship which will open up a lot of career pathways.”
Since becoming a registered apprenticeship provider in 2020, around 450 people have taken up NHBC’s bricklaying and construction site supervisor programmes.
The courses have been designed with input from across the industry to ensure they meet the needs of employers and employees alike.
The Home Builders Federation estimates that 2,500 bricklayers are needed for every 10,000 homes built. That means around 75,000 are needed to hit the government’s target of building 300,000 new homes every year by 2025. But there are only 42,000 bricklayers in home building, meaning an extra 33,000 are now needed.
Darryl Stewart, responsible for NHBC’s apprentice training programme and hubs, hosted HRH The Princess Royal.
He said: “We are honoured to welcome HRH The Princess Royal to the NHBC training hub in Cambridge.
“Bricklaying is at the heart of house building and a hugely important skill. In recent years, house builders have found it more challenging to recruit people for a range of reasons.
“Historically, it’s an industry which has been perceived as being male-dominated, and currently, it’s also facing the challenge of an ageing workforce.
“This means we must find ways to encourage people from all walks of life to join the sector which requires an extra 225,000 construction workers by 2027 to meet demand.
“The purpose-built NHBC training hub offers a realistic work environment and we’re seeing apprentices completing their training in just 14 months and many with distinctions.
“It’s a standout difference from the 30-month timescale more traditional learning routes take. What’s more, NHBC’s retention rate after completion is an industry-leading 85 per cent, compared to the industry average of 55 per cent.
“An apprenticeship in the house building industry is a pathway into a range of rewarding and well-paid careers that can make a real difference to the available future workforce.
“NHBC’s core purpose is to raise standards in house building and our experts carry out more than one million site inspections each year at key stages of building a new home.
“Our NHBC training hubs and apprenticeship programmes are a key component of NHBC’s ongoing commitment to supporting the next generation of housebuilders and equipping them with the skills to build high-quality new homes.
“NHBC’s apprenticeships are for everyone, and we’re delighted to see people from all backgrounds coming through, including school-leavers, career changers and women wanting to work in house building.
“It’s never too late to learn a new skill!”
For more information, visit nhbc.co.uk/builders/products-and-services/training/apprenticeships.
In what was a busy day, The Princess Royal also paid a visit to life science company Illumina, located in Granta Park, Cambridge.
