In a construction industry that needs thousands of new workers each year if it hopes to achieve the government’s housebuilding targets, the recruitment and retention of young, first-job employees is of crucial importance.
Get it right early on and new recruits could turn a job into a career, become a valuable asset, and go on to hire or train the next generation. Get it wrong and they could spend a few months in an entry-level role before looking for new work elsewhere.
With unemployment among 16-24-year-olds rising to a five-year high of 16.1% in the final quarter of 2025, now is an opportune time to address the talent shortage and get more boots on the ground in the built environment sector.
But new employees need support, especially if they don’t come from a ‘typical’ background or have grown up with circumstances that might require a tailored approach from their manager. That type of support is precisely what the charity Youthbuild UK specialises in.
Martell Lindsay is employee partnerships coordinator at YouthBuild UK and has helped hundreds of young people find their first job in the built environment. Many of the people who complete the 13-week YouthBuild programme come from disadvantaged backgrounds and have experienced challenges such the care system, a disrupted education, gang violence or prison. Some are refugees, keen to work and support themselves but struggling to find an entry-level position.
If they are working with a group of prison leavers, YouthBuild UK can run gang awareness workshops and bring in violence reduction units or even offer support with substance abuse and gambling addiction. But, Lindsay reiterates, there’s always an overarching theme of ‘what can I do for my community?’
“The one thing that 99% of young people we work with have in common is that they’re poor,” says Lindsay. “That’s the truth. They have no job. They have no support system. They live in areas where there aren’t many opportunities unless you leave.
“I would not frame what we do as a construction programme. Construction is the hook, but it's a leadership programme. It's teaching people to be leaders for their community, to take accountability and advocate for their own needs.”
YouthBuild was founded nearly 50 years ago in 1978, in East Harlem, New York, by former teacher Dorothy Stoneman. In an economically depressed New York City that seems a million miles away from the popular modern tourist destination of today, Stoneman helped local young people refurbish abandoned buildings and turn them into affordable housing.
The programme has grown and spread around the world and there are now permanent YouthBuild programmes in nine countries – UK, USA, Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, South Africa, Kenya and Brazil. YouthBuild UK currently has two branches in south-east London, in Thamesmead and Lewisham, with another planned for Peckham soon.
“If you want to keep talent in this industry, make sure they're happy, make sure they have opportunities to progress” Martell Lindsay, YouthBuild UK
Help to find meaningful work
Around 100-150 young people join a YouthBuild programme each year in London and graduates have been placed in junior quantity surveyor positions, as well as bricklayers, carpenters or site managers. They have a 67% employment rate within six months, which compares favourably to the 25% who finish further education courses and are aiming for housebuilding jobs.
YouthBuild helps young people find their way into meaningful work in the built environment, although Lindsay says it’s important to let them figure out what it is they want to do and not push them towards a particular role. “It involves work experience with the sector or trade they’re interested in, doing community asset builds and seeing if they like it,” he says.
Giving participants hands-on experience at a range of skills and job types is only part of the process – helping them navigate their own potentially challenging circumstances is equally important. “The programme has three specific categories: leadership, employability and construction,” says Lindsay.
The leadership aspect was particularly helpful for one YouthBuild graduate, Shakira Green, who is now a building services engineer apprentice at energy services company Dalkia. She completed the course three years ago and says that belief in her own abilities was what she most needed help with.
“I knew I was job-ready, it was more about being confident,” says Green. When she joined the YouthBuild programme, there was a group leader role that she didn’t put herself forward for but was quickly nominated by someone who saw her potential. “That made me realise that I had actual leadership skills that I hadn’t seen before. When I finished the course, I knew I was a good leader.”
During her time at YouthBuild, they had mock interviews with a construction professional and were also given the opportunity to go to employers in the built environment and interview them – finding out more about the kind of jobs they do and what the day-to-day work entails. The hands-on element of the course included rebuilding a local youth club in Thamesmead, from brickwork to painting, as well as gaining experience in plastering, dry lining and tiling.
The programme also covers practical elements such as how to dress for a job interview, register for self-employment, understand contracts and read payslips. “Even something like setting up a professional email address,” Lindsay adds,“because you'd be surprised how many people come in with demonslayer_5000@gmail.com.”
“I was job-ready, it was more about being confident … When I finished the course, I knew I was a good leader” Shakira Green, Dalkia
Retention through opportunity
Once a YouthBuild graduate has completed the programme and gone onto find work, Lindsay says the best way to keep them there is to offer growth and progression. Steady work at an hourly rate above the National Living Wage (£12.21) is a great start, but if a labourer remains a labourer for too long and hasn’t been taken on as an apprentice, they’ll start to look elsewhere.
“Someone who's a labourer or gateperson or a traffic marshal for three years will leave,” says Lindsay. “Someone who is offered an apprenticeship role after a year will stay because that will create loyalty to the organisation. You've recognised their talent and they've turned up and proven themselves. That’s one of the big things we’re pushing, for companies to look internally first to fill their apprenticeship positions.”
“There are 60-year-olds who work in the sector and say, ‘I left school with no qualifications, got taken on as an apprentice and worked my way up’. High progression equals high morale, which means high retention. If you want to keep talent in this industry, make sure they're happy, make sure they have opportunities to progress and make sure they're getting paid decently.”
As Lindsay points out, it’s common practice for apprentices to be offered a reduced hourly rate of £7.55, a drop of 38% from the National Living Wage. It’s a disincentive for someone struggling to pay their rent or with other immediate financial concerns. Their long-term prospects are improved by an apprenticeship but there is a short-term price to pay.
Supporting apprentices with regular one-to-one appraisals will increase the chances of success – something that Green appreciates at Dalkia: “There's five apprentices on my site and every Friday we have a meeting to talk about what we've done in the week, what we've learned, what we might need help with from our managers,” she says.
“Our line manager is good at speaking one-to-one. If we need help with certain things, maybe it's personal or maybe you don't want to talk about it with everybody else, he'll be there to support us because he's been in our position before.”
That neat circularity of a former apprentice turned line manager overseeing new apprentices is also apparent in YouthBuild, where graduates often end up returning to shape its direction. Lindsay highlights the role of youth panels, boards, and graduate staff, in ensuring that the programme remains responsive to the varied needs of its participants.
Because as Green points out, if you haven’t got good grades at college or university, or you don’t have the right work experience under your belt, it can be harder for an employer to work out where you fit in. That’s why organisations like YouthBuild or the Construction Industry Training Board’s Mind the Gap programme are so valuable for helping people, who might otherwise slip through the cracks, find a route into the industry and a fulfilling career.
RICS supporting YouthBuild
“RICS is proud to support initiatives such as YouthBuild, which also forms part of the Inspired to Hired programme, while continuing our wider work to create accessible pathways for young people into surveying,” says Tomi Ayede, membership DEI manager at RICS.
“Through our outreach, partnerships, and early careers initiatives, we are committed to broadening access to the profession and ensuring that young people from all backgrounds can see a future for themselves within the built environment.”
Inspiring the next generation of surveyors
Increasing the visibility of surveying as a career
