CITB launches Strategic Plan 2025–29

The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has today launched its Strategic Plan 2025-29, outlining its approach to supporting the construction industry's skills and training needs over the next four years.

This Plan emphasises the importance of collaboration with industry and UK Governments’, investment in skills and training development, and the need to address the skills gap to ensure the construction industry can meet future demands.

The overarching purpose of this Plan is to support the construction industry in developing a skilled, competent, and inclusive workforce, with a view to improving productivity and eradicating the skills gap.

The key objectives of this Plan are to:

1. Inspire and enable diverse and skilled people into construction by increasing new entrants into the industry through various routes. To achieve this, CITB will promote construction careers to over 5 million potential new entrants and develop new materials and campaigns showcasing construction as an exciting career option.
2. Develop a skills and training system to meet current and future needs by simplifying it and making it more response. Additionally, CITB aims to increase capability and capacity in construction training provision and develop alternative routes to competence and ensure high-quality training is available.
3. Support the industry to train, develop, and retain its workforce by leading the development of an industry-agreed definition of competence for every construction occupation. CITB will offer flexible and funded options for employers to upskill their workforce and enhance productivity through better practices in quality control, project management, leadership, and digital skills.

These objectives will support the UK Government’s ambitions to deliver 1.5 million new homes in England, dozens of new infrastructure projects, and economic growth. The wellbeing of the construction industry is often a bellwether for the wider economy, so having a healthy industry with a strong pipeline of new entrants is key to supporting the government’s plans.

To support these objectives, CITB will review granting and funding incentives for employers to make recruitment more commercially attractive while investing more resource to tackle the challenge of recruiting and training new entrants, providing support through its New Entrant Support Team. Additionally, CITB will increase capability and capacity in construction training provision to improve retention and achievement rates for industry learners and is currently leading the development, alongside the Construction Leadership Council, of an industry agreed definition of competence for every construction occupation.

Since its last Strategic Plan 2021-25, following a successful trial, CITB has also fully rolled out its Employer Networks initiative, giving employers a say in funding decision and addressing immediate and future skills needs.

To achieve these objectives, CITB is allocating significant investment over the lifetime of this Strategic Plan into the following key areas to align with construction employers’ priorities:

• £554 million to inspire and enable diverse and skilled people into construction.
• £315 million to support the industry to train, develop and retain its workforce.
• £137 million to develop a skills and training system to meet current and future needs.
• £143 million to run the business, including grant and levy administration.

Key measures to assess the success of this Strategic Plan are:

• Supporting over 15,000 new entrants into employment through additional routes.
• Delivering a 5% increase in employer confidence around the availability and quality of training.
• Providing support for over 35,000 employers with upskilling training and engagement of over 5,000 new employers in training.

Tim Balcon, CEO of CITB, said: “Everything we do at CITB is about meeting the skills and training needs of the industry, and this Strategic Plan provides the framework with which we aim to achieve this over the next four years. Since our last Strategic Plan 2021-25, we’ve supported over 78,000 apprentices, by providing over £188 million in apprenticeship grants. We’ve also provided over £37 million in funding to support micro and SME employers, the lifeblood of our industry.

“We’ve consulted with over 1,000 employers to develop our Strategic Plan 2025–29. It’s vital that Levy-registered employers can see this Plan ahead of Consensus – the proposed Levy rates are expected to generate an income of around £239 million per annum over the 2026–29 period. Supplemented by our commercial revenue streams, this will be used to continue supporting construction employers with their skills and training needs.

“We look forward to working with industry, training providers, and national governments to address their skills and training challenges and ensure the skills and training system is simple and accessible for everyone.”

Read the full Strategic Plan.