A new report calls for industry veterans to spend a few years in mentoring, training and education before disappearing into retirement.
in collaboration with ProAge argues that the UK鈥檚 construction industry has at its disposal a powerful potential solution to help alleviate the skills crisis: the experienced workers already on site.
Its report, Rebuilding the UK鈥檚 construction workforce, introduces ConstructED, a workforce model designed to retain older construction professionals and trades by enabling them to transition into teaching, mentoring and assessor roles 鈥� strengthening apprenticeships, stabilising training quality and protecting decades of institutional knowledge. The model is being developed by Mike Mansfield at ProAge.
The paper, written by Kay Allen and Fiona Lennox, warns that construction is losing people faster than it can replace them. Since 2019, the sector has shrunk by roughly 14%, while nearly half of apprentices fail to complete training. At the same time, one in three construction workers is now over 50, with a major wave of the current workforce approaching state pension age. Further education colleges face acute lecturer shortages, undermining the very system meant to rebuild the pipeline.
Rather than treating retirement as an exit point, ConstructED reframes it as a transition point. The model proposes funded pathways that allow experienced tradespeople to gain teaching qualifications while still working, enabling fractional roles in education, mentoring and knowledge transfer. If just 10% of the 625,000 workers due to retire over the next 17 years remained economically active through training roles, the Treasury could benefit from over 拢2bn in fiscal value in the next decade, it is argued,
Kay Allen, campaign director of Age Irrelevance, said: 鈥淭he construction skills crisis is not just about attracting young people. It is about valuing experience as infrastructure. When knowledge leaves unmanaged, productivity falls and training weakens. We already have the expertise we need 鈥� we simply haven鈥檛 designed a system to keep it in circulation.鈥�
Strategy director Fiona Lennox added: 鈥淭his is a workforce longevity issue. Industries built around a binary entry and exit model are no longer keeping pace with demographic reality. ConstructED offers a blueprint for multi-stage careers where contribution evolves rather than ends. That is how modern economies stay competitive.鈥�
ProAge chief executive Mike Mansfield said: 鈥淭o tackle the shortage of further education lecturers in the construction sector, we need to recognise the untapped potential of experienced older workers. By reskilling seasoned professionals to support new apprenticeships, we can not only address teaching gaps but also unlock powerful knowledge transfer 鈥� ensuring that the next generation benefits from decades of real-world expertise."