Skilled wood-tradesmen are the most sought after workers in the UK construction industry.

22 January 2020


When it comes to employers looking to fill vacant positions, it is clearly more advantageous to be trained in some jobs than others. According to Construction Industry Training Board’s (CITB) Construction Skills Network report, the top 15 in-demand manual labour jobs and corresponding annual recruitment requirements (ARR) have been identified.

For each of these, average yearly internet search requests have been obtained to determine which offer the best chance at securing a job.

The most sought after trade with 2,380 jobs advertised in a year were for “Wood trades and interior fit-out”. But there were also 45,240 annual searches made by people looking for those positions.

Those with the best shot at landing a job is in the roofing trade. With 2,160 people searching each year for 750 annual recruitment ads, that equates to a 288% difference, the smallest margin in this study.

In second place are building envelope specialists. Prospective applicants search 384% more (2,140) times than the number of available jobs (560).

Flipping the table, the occupation with the lowest chance of securing jobs are plasterers. With only 250 roles per annum and yet 171,360 searches, that equates to a whopping 68,544% difference - incredibly difficult for aspiring plasterers.

Closely following behind are bricklayers. With a 58,385% difference between those interested in a job and the number jobs available, it is a similarly competitive job.

This research was commissioned by www.showerstoyou.co.uk