CITB urges Scottish construction firms to pursue apprenticeship grants

This week marks Scottish Apprenticeship Week, and the CITB is calling for Scottish construction companies to accelerate the number of apprenticeship starts by claiming CITB apprenticeship grants.

To celebrate Scottish Apprenticeship Week and highlight the opportunities, CITB welcomed Graeme Dey MSP, Minister for Higher and Further Education, to its National Construction College (NCC) in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire. The Minister toured the NCC, seeing an array of apprentices in action, and spoke with a range of employers and apprentices about their experiences.

In its Strategic Plan 2025-29, CITB has committed more than £550 million to inspire and enable diverse and skilled people into construction, including the continued provision of grants for employers who take on apprentices. From April 2023 to March 2025, CITB has invested nearly £150m into apprenticeship grants.

CITB’s latest Construction Skills Network report found that the Scottish construction industry needs an extra 26,100 workers between 2024 and 2028. Statistics from Skills Development Scotland also show that there are currently nearly 14,000 construction apprentices in training in Scotland.

Apprenticeship starts remain steady, with around 6,500 people starting a construction apprenticeship in Scotland in each of the last three financial years, and this is set to remain on track in the 2024/25 financial year.

CITB Scotland currently manages nearly 4,500 apprentices, of which an estimated 1,260 will have started their apprenticeship in the 2024/25 financial year.

Graeme Dey MSP, Minister for Higher and Further Education, said: “Scottish Apprenticeship Week is a great opportunity to get out and see the unique approaches that businesses and colleges take to ensure apprentices are equipped with the skills they need to succeed, and I have been very impressed by the facilities here at the National Construction College.

“It was also a valuable opportunity to meet apprentices on the ground and learn more about the journey they’ve made, which is vitally important as we take forward reforms to the skills landscape. These improvements will ensure that apprenticeships continue to deliver significant benefits to the economy for future years and encourage more young people to consider apprenticeships as an option as they come to end of their time at school.

“I look forward to continuing our partnership working with CITB as we take this work forward.”

Kirsty Evans, Executive Principal (NCC), at CITB, said: “It was wonderful to welcome the Minister to the NCC in Scotland. Graeme got to see many of our apprentices in action. It was a lovely way to celebrate Scottish Apprenticeship Week.

“CITB as a whole supports thousands of apprentices every year and we work hard to continually improve the experience of apprentices to provide them with clear guidance for career pathways and progression in the construction industry.”

Ian Hughes, Engagement Director (Scotland), at CITB, said: “We want Scottish construction employers to get in touch with us about how we can support them and their training and skills needs. We’ve found that firms which started providing apprenticeships in the last five years thought it was a good way to recruit and train new staff, as well as upskilling existing staff. 86% of employers we spoke to said that employing an apprentice allows them to train people the way that they want, or to mould them to how they do things.

“There’s plenty of support available through CITB to help make finding, recruiting and retaining an apprentice or new entrant easier. For example, our Employer Networks provide employers with a direct channel to communicate their training needs with us, in turn enabling CITB to be more responsive.”