Driving competency in the retrofit sector

The construction industry is critical in enabling the transition to net zero by 2050, with retrofitting our homes a significant part of this challenge.

Retrofitting homes reduces carbon emissions, improves energy security and addresses fuel poverty, as well as bringing wider benefits to health and well-being of occupants.

The scale of retrofit work required across 27 million domestic UK dwellings presents a significant opportunity to build capacity and competence in the construction workforce.

The People & Skills workstream of the Construction Leadership Council have released a report that sets out a framework for defining competence in the retrofit sector. This publication supports the huge amount of work happening across industry to enable the delivery of domestic retrofit.

The report presents a consistent framework of the core overarching knowledge, skills and behaviours required to deliver effective retrofit of homes at scale, both in retrofit-specific roles and associated roles in industry.

The work presented in this report takes the industry a step forwards by defining competency in retrofit, and meeting the requirements of the new building safety rules. The competence statements can be used to support the development of competence frameworks for specific occupations involved in retrofit work. They also support the development of training and education that equips the workforce for the future, both in training new entrants and upskilling the existing workforce.

The work undertaken to produce this report highlights the value of the Construction Leadership Council’s convening power in drawing together work that is happening across the industry and working towards the common goal of building a competent workforce.

Achieving this goal requires that the competence statements presented in the report are now implemented through both industry ‘pull’ – for example, introducing minimum requirements and standards of competence in procurement – and in education and training ‘push’ – reviewing curriculum and training course content to ensure that these equip candidates with what is needed in industry.

We encourage all stakeholders involved in the retrofit sector to review the recommendations made in the report for embedding competence and to take action to deliver the changes needed.