Interview with NHBC: “We’re focusing on the trades that housebuilders need the most”

Roger Morton, Director of Business Change at the National House Building Council (NHBC), talks to Installer about its new nationwide network of skills hubs, created to help train up to 3,000 site-ready tradespeople every year.

What are the skills hubs?

They’re onsite training facilities, with realistic site conditions – as we’re outside, they look and feel like a real site. The apprentices experience normal working days, with full PPE, at our purpose-built skills hubs. Initially, we’re focusing on the trades that housebuilders need the most: bricklaying, groundworking and site carpentry.

How does it work?

It is a block training programme which means the apprentices are at the hubs for at least a week at a time, rather than a traditional day release programme, so when the students come in, they’re completely engaged in that environment and they can leave with the skills, which they take back to site. That’s really important for their employers because they get skills straight away that they can use.

Where are the hubs and what do the apprentices learn?

We set up some pilots, first of all in Tamworth, which was a bricklaying hub, another one in Newcastle, one in Hull, and one in Cambridge. We are now investing £100 million pounds in 12 new multi-skill training hubs across the UK, which will train 3,000 new apprentices every year in the trades the industry needs the most. Each of these new hubs will be two thirds the size of a football pitch and as close to real site conditions are possible.

The pilot hubs were all doing bricklaying initially and then also included groundworks. The 12 new hubs will offer bricklaying, groundworks and site carpentry – three interrelated trades – but will remain flexible to offer the trades most needed to the local area they are built in.

This means we train 60 apprentices at one time, not just with an intake in September as you have in the traditional college environment, we can do four intakes a year.  Furthermore, if we get lots of demand for, say, groundworks, we can use all three areas for groundworks.

Any plans to expand to include other trades?

We have a steering group represented by the trade bodies and by the housebuilders, and they’ve told us that we need timber frame apprenticeship, so we’re about to launch exactly that later this year. The 12 hubs that we are looking to set up across the country, we describe them as being trade agnostic. The slabs as we call them, the slabs and concrete that are used to train the apprentices on could be used for different things and we’re listening to what the sector tells us. The other great thing about the hubs, so 80% of the time they’re used for the apprenticeships, but that leaves us 20% for other things, which could be shorter courses for upskilling, or it might be encouraging schools to come in and see what a career in construction could look like.

Who employs the apprentices?

Traditionally the large housebuilders don’t directly employ labour, they use their supply chain. So we’re talking to this sector about the benefits of having an apprenticeship in the way that we run it – we can deliver a level two apprenticeship in 14 to 18 months, which is a lot quicker than the traditional training provision which can take two to three years. Plus, we can point them in the right direction where they can get funding and help them through what can be a complicated process at times, especially for SMEs.

The employers can be everything from sole traders right through to national contractors. I think that’s what makes training really challenging, because it is not a one size fits all – we need to engage with the supply chain and see what helps them.

For more information visit: nhbc.co.uk/training/apprenticeships/training-hubs

NHBC will be speaking at InstallerSHOW 2026, which runs 23-25 June at the NEC. Register for InstallerSHOW here: forms.reg.buzz/installer-show-2026