We are all guilty of saying "they don't build like they used to" and it is true that many of the old-style craftsman skills are seen far less frequently on building sites today. Despite a perhaps rose-tinted yearning for the retention of traditional skills, there are still insufficient facilities for newcomers to the industry to be trained and the number of companies taking on apprentices is pitifully small. On the opposite side of the equation, intake at colleges and other industry training facilities over the last 12 months has been phenomenal and even college professors are moving into the trades to boost their income. Problems associated with skills development, decreasing contract programme times and the good old British weather have led to assertions being made that the industry needs to begin abandoning its traditional construction approach and that, partly because of these concerns, a pre-assembly format is the only way forward. So how do we balance the concerns over lack of future skilled labour against the need for quality buildings and their maintenance? Are we really saying that the only way forward is prefabrication? No. The industry should be looking at ways of curing the problem, not sidestepping it. The industry has suffered from a lack of appeal over recent years, but interest is returning and this trend can be encouraged with greater support from employers in the form of apprenticeships and work placements following training. Specific encouragement needs to be targeted at subcontractors who, because of the shift in patterns of construction procurement, produce a larger and larger share of the workload. Subcontractors must be helped and encouraged to formalise training packages which address the problem of fewer and fewer direct employees being engaged by the traditional main contractor. Employers should view the implementation of comprehensive skills training as a long-term investment, not simply an overhead. It is important to remember that if we are not successful in this it is not just our industry that will suffer, all industry will. On the subject of prefabrication, while the industry must keep its eye on the future, we should not forget the considerable changes that have already been introduced over the last few decades. These have resulted in reduced manufacturing, erection/installation and maintenance costs, less impact on our roads and the environment, faster construction times and a better final product. It's not long ago that blocks became the preferred way to build internal walls or that plasterboard became so popular when wet plaster was the only acceptable wall finish before. More recently, pre-plumbed washrooms and bathrooms have become more common, and windows and doors invariably come to site fully glazed and factory finished. Together with other commodities such as pre-cast concrete floor units, much has been done to remove wet trades from within the structure, thereby reducing drying out times and speeding up the process. One thing is for sure: fast build times are here to stay. One of the main areas considered ripe for prefabrication is facing brickwork. Continental-style systems with their seemingly faster construction times, coupled with the Government's high-density housing targets for quick inexpensive housing and the good old argument of lack of skilled tradesmen, is surely ringing the death knell of bricklaying as we know it. Panel construction may seem a simple solution by putting the skilled work in the factory and cheating the weather, but it is not cheap and has exposed a whole new set of skill requirements not previously considered. While nobody can deny that prefabrication has its benefits and uses, pods, timber frame, pre-cast and prefabricated unit methods of construction all throw up their own set of challenges and cost implications. These factors, along with issues about changes to the training of new tradesmen and the mass retraining of existing skills, will mean that the industry will continue to slowly evolve while pushing the boundaries of what is expected. We only have to look at our own city to see how this has happened in practice and, for the most part, these strides into the future have been accepted by the populace who have taken buildings like the ICC, NIA and new Selfridges store to their hearts. This form of innovative design and construction has and will continue to move the industry forward. The construction industry record on recruitment and retention may have suffered from years of neglect. But the situation is beginning to change for the better and, given the new challenges presented by market forces, product and design innovation, the sector currently offers the ambitious youngster a lifetime of rewarding career options. ................................ | 
