Growing demand and skills shortage in Northern Ireland construction sector

FMB report growing demand but skills shortage hampering construction in Northern Ireland, with short supply of tradespeople.

The Federation of Master Builders (FMB) has reported Northern Ireland is experiencing growing demand in the construction sector, but builders and being hampered by a serious shortage of skilled workers, particularly carpenters and joiners.

Northern Ireland’s construction SMEs are onto their ninth consecutive quarter growth, seeing continual rise in worklad.

But the survey revealed that just under 60% of firms were struggling to hire carpenters, the highest level reported since the financial crisis.

In additional, a total of 85% of firms said they believed that material prices would increase in the next three months.

The FMB said that housebuilding and demand for home improvements were fuelling the growth among small to medium sized building firms.

Gavin McGuire, director of FMB Northern Ireland, said: “In the first three months of this year, builders enjoyed growing workloads, rising numbers of enquiries and are increasingly confident about the future, despite the political stalemate in NI. It begs the question – if we had strong political leadership in NI and political stability, how well would our core business sectors like construction be performing? Although the NI construction sector is not fully out of the woods after the tough years following the financial crisis, it is in a much better place than it was two years ago. This progress within the SME building industry owes much to robust demand for both new homes and home improvement, the bread and butter of most small local builders.”

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