The construction industry’s expectation gap and what to do about it

The conversation around construction talent in the UK has been remarkably consistent for over a decade. The industry needs more people. Skills shortages are holding back growth. More must be done to attract the next generation.

A new report from the Home Builders Federation and The Careers & Enterprise Company reinforces that position, highlighting that the sector requires approximately 47,860 additional workers each year to meet demand.

But what makes this report more interesting is not the scale of the challenge. It is the contradiction at its core.

At the same time as employers are struggling to fill roles, interest in construction careers among young people is both strong and increasing. Based on responses from more than 330,000 students, construction now ranks among the top five career interests and is one of the few sectors where interest grows as learners move through secondary education.

This creates a fundamental question. If awareness is high and interest is growing, why is the industry still unable to convert that interest into a stable, long term workforce?

The gap between interest and employment in the construction sector

The report is clear that the challenge is not one of attraction. Rather, it is a failure of conversion and retention.

In other words, the industry is not short of people who are open to a career in construction. It is short of people who both enter and remain in those roles over time.

This distinction is important because it shifts the focus away from marketing and towards experience.

Much of the current approach to early careers engagement is designed to generate interest. Schools outreach, careers events and employer talks all play a role in ensuring that construction is visible and understood as an option. These efforts are necessary and, by most measures, increasingly effective.

However, they also tend to present a simplified version of the industry. They introduce roles, outline pathways and highlight opportunities, but they rarely provide a detailed or realistic understanding of what working in construction actually involves on a day to day basis.

As a result, many candidates make decisions based on partial information. They enter training programmes or accept roles without fully understanding the realities of the work, and this misalignment becomes visible only after they have joined.

The report refers to this as a “leaky pipeline”, where individuals leave the sector before establishing a long term career. From a commercial perspective, this is not a marginal issue. It represents a significant loss of investment in recruitment, training and workforce development, as well as a constraint on productivity and delivery.

Expectation, not awareness, is the underlying issue

Framed in this way, the challenge facing the construction industry is not simply one of supply. It is one of expectation.

Candidates are not necessarily choosing the wrong industry. They are choosing roles without a clear understanding of what those roles entail. When expectations and reality diverge, early attrition becomes far more likely.

This is particularly relevant in construction, where the day to day experience of work can differ significantly from how it is perceived externally. Factors such as site conditions, pace of work, team dynamics and the physical nature of many roles are difficult to communicate through traditional engagement methods. Closing this gap requires more than increased visibility. It requires a more accurate representation of the work itself.

Evidence from Berkeley: aligning expectations before hire

One of the most compelling examples in the report comes from Berkeley Group, working in partnership with ThriveMap.

The objective was not to increase application volume or accelerate hiring timelines. It was to improve alignment between candidate expectations and the realities of construction roles at the point of entry.

To achieve this, Berkeley redesigned its early careers recruitment process to include a realistic job assessment. This assessment was built on detailed analysis of the role and reflected real site environments, typical responsibilities and the types of collaboration challenges candidates would encounter in practice.

Rather than relying solely on CVs or abstract assessment tasks, candidates were given the opportunity to experience aspects of the job before making a decision about whether to proceed.

The impact of this approach was significant. The report highlights improved retention across early careers cohorts, with 85% of hires remaining in role after 12 months. It also contributed to a more diverse intake, with female representation reaching 61%, alongside a 98% positive candidate experience.

These outcomes suggest that when candidates are better informed, they make more deliberate decisions. Those who proceed are more likely to remain, and those who opt out do so before significant cost is incurred.

This is a fundamentally different way of thinking about recruitment. It treats hiring not simply as a selection process, but as a mechanism for mutual understanding.

Read the Berkeley ThriveMap case study

A broader shift across the sector

Berkeley’s approach does not sit in isolation. Across the report, organisations including Keepmoat, CITB, NHBC and regional Careers Hubs are all exploring ways to strengthen the connection between education, recruitment and long term employment. While the specific initiatives vary, a consistent theme emerges. The most effective interventions are those that move beyond abstract awareness and provide meaningful, experience-based insight into construction careers.

This includes hands-on work experience, structured pathways from education into employment, and closer collaboration between employers and local partners to ensure that opportunities are both visible and accessible.

What unites these efforts is a recognition that interest alone is insufficient. Without a clear understanding of what a role involves, interest does not translate into sustained participation.

Reframing the role of hiring

If the underlying issue is expectation, then the role of hiring must evolve.

Traditional recruitment processes are often designed to assess capability and filter candidates efficiently. While these objectives remain important, they do not address whether a candidate has an accurate understanding of the role they are applying for.

A more effective approach places greater emphasis on alignment. This involves providing candidates with realistic previews of the work, designing assessments that reflect actual job demands, and enabling informed self-selection.

In practical terms, this means accepting that not every candidate should progress through the process. Early deselection, when based on a clear understanding of the role, is not a failure. It is a way of reducing future attrition.

From attraction to alignment

The construction industry has made meaningful progress in increasing awareness and engagement among young people. The data suggests that these efforts are working.

The next phase requires a shift in focus.

Rather than asking how to attract more candidates, the more relevant question is how to ensure that those who do enter the industry are both prepared for and committed to the reality of the work.

This is not a short term adjustment. It represents a change in how the sector thinks about talent, from a focus on volume and access to a focus on alignment and retention.

The organisations highlighted in this report are already moving in this direction. Their experience suggests that improving the accuracy of expectations before hire is one of the most effective ways to build a more stable and sustainable workforce. And in an industry where delivery depends as much on people as it does on planning and capital, that shift is likely to become increasingly important.

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