Balfour Beatty : Driving the nation’s Highways skills agenda forward

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30 November 2017

Following on from discussing the challenges and solutions in building a sustainable skills base in the nuclear sector, Balfour Beatty today presents fourteen key points in tackling the skills shortage in the Highways sector in its latest Public Policy paper, 'The Road to Growth: Skills for the Highways Sector'.

The UK's road system is one of its most valuable national assets, key to our economic growth. Forming the arteries around the country, a safe and suitable strategic road network is vital in connecting major cities, delivering goods from towns to villages and keeping people moving up and down the country.

Yet like many other sectors within the industry, there lies a critical issue behind the delivery of key highways infrastructure projects.

By 2020, the year the second Road Investment Strategy (RIS) begins, the sector will need an extra 15,000 road-building professionals, this figure according to a speech delivered by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling on the skills and infrastructure needed to sustain transport investment in the UK.

Despite this vast industry skills requirement, and the continued Government investment into upgrading the strategic road network, little progress has been made in increasing the flow of people into the sector.

Acknowledging how vitally important it is for the sector to take a more strategic approach in meeting the skills challenge within the Highways sector, Balfour Beatty, has today published a two-pronged solution to this challenge, in its latest paper 'The Road to Growth: Skills for the Highways Sector', available to read here.

Phil Clifton, Managing Director of Balfour Beatty's Highways business area, said: 'The first Road Investment Strategy outlined a multi-year investment plan including over 100 major schemes funded by £15.2 billion of public money. It is of utmost importance that, with the second Road Investment Strategy coming into play in a few years, the industry has the required skilled workforce to successfully and safely deliver these projects.

'Modernising and digitising our workforce and the way we deliver projects is key to upskilling, attracting and retaining the array of talent the sector requires to keeping Britain moving'.

ENDS

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Antonia Walton
Balfour Beatty
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Notes to editors:

• Balfour Beatty (www.balfourbeatty.com) is a leading international infrastructure group. With 30,000 employees, we provide innovative and efficient infrastructure that underpins our daily lives, supports communities and enables economic growth. We finance, develop, build and maintain complex infrastructure such as transportation, power and utility systems, social and commercial buildings.
• Our main geographies are the UK, US and Far East. Over the last 100 years we have created iconic buildings and infrastructure all over the world including the London Olympics' Aquatic Centre, Hong Kong's first Zero Carbon building, the National Museum of the Marine Corps in the US and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.