To mark the 10th anniversary of World Youth Skills Day, Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) Chief Executive Andrew Hockey wrote a guest blog for PBC Today to showcase the opportunities that exist for young people to forge a career in the engineering construction industry (ECI).
The article highlights how the growing demand for skilled workers in the ECI’s different sectors presents young people with the chance to embark on careers that can make a real difference in an industry that will be critical to achieve net zero.
Andrew states that training and developing new entrants to make the most of these opportunities is a key priority of the ECITB’s Leading Industry Learning Strategy and is why half of our training grant budget is dedicated to this area.
Read the World Youth Skills Day blog in PBC Today
Career pathways in engineering construction
The article goes on to detail how the ECITB has developed a wide array of initiatives to help create a pipeline of new entrants and attract young people, such as school leavers, graduates and the unemployed, to careers in the industry.
These include apprenticeships, the ECITB Scholarship Programme, our Graduate Development Grant and the life-changing Work Ready Programme.
With World Youth Skills Day being a celebration of “the importance of equipping young people with skills”, Andrew cites an example of one of his site visits (pictured) during his 12 months as chief executive at the ECITB.
“In my first year, I’ve met with hundreds of young people across the UK on our different programmes and seen first-hand the impact of equipping young people with skills for employment.
“I was really energised, for example, by my recent trip to East Coast College in Lowestoft to witness the great journey our ECITB scholars have been on.
“I’d met the same young people eight months earlier, shortly after they had started on the scholarship programme, and was wowed by the demonstrable change in terms of how they had all grown in confidence and developed in that time thanks to the programme.”
Andrew Hockey
Chief Executive, ECITB
