New research has revealed that the water treatment workforce within the engineering construction industry (ECI) could increase by 48% in the next five years.
The ECI plays a crucial role in the UK meeting its net zero ambitions, spanning sectors that focus on the construction, maintenance and decommissioning of heavy industry, including oil and gas, nuclear, power generation, renewables, chemicals, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen as well as water treatment.
The Engineering Construction Industry Training Board’s (ECITB) Labour Forecasting Tool (LFT) provides insights into workforce numbers across regions and sectors, predicting trends and potential future demand for workers in the industry.
The tool, which was first launched in November 2023, has been updated using findings from the ECITB 2024 Workforce Census and publicly stated timescales on 3,000 active and future ECI projects across Great Britain.
The Census report highlighted a positive growth outlook for the water sector, attributing this forecast to “historically high infrastructure investment and the likelihood that such investment will continue to sustain the sector’s activities in the coming years”.
This followed the announcement in December when regulator Ofwat confirmed it would allow water companies in England and Wales to invest a record-breaking £104 billion over the next five years for the eighth asset management period (AMP8) to accelerate delivery of cleaner rivers and seas and secure long-term drinking water supplies for customers.
As a result, the ECITB’s latest forecast states that the size of the ECI workforce in the water sector could grow to more than 4,300 by 2030, with design technicians, project managers and mechanical fitters among the roles most in demand.
The tool previously stated that demand across industry would peak in 2028, but this has now shifted to 2030 due to delays in some projects coinciding with other planned activity, as well as a potential wave of retirements in key roles.
The revised predictions were possible thanks to a record response rate from industry employers for the latest iteration of the ECITB Workforce Census.
The ECITB Workforce Census 2024 offered a comprehensive overview of the ECI workforce, having gathered data on more than 2,500 workers in the water workforce alone, covering distribution across regions, demographic trends, hiring challenges and business opportunities.
ECITB Chief Executive Andrew Hockey said:
“A key objective of the Foundations pillar of our Leading Industry Learning strategy is to produce impactful labour market intelligence to enable data-driven decision-making.
“The significant Census response rate enabled the ECITB to provide more precise, up-to-date data for the benefit of industry. It allows us to improve the LFT to help make better predictions on future workforce trends and labour demands in the water treatment sector.
“The updates to the LFT reinforce the scale of the challenges facing the water industry that were outlined in our Workforce Census Report, which revealed that a third of workers in the sector are over 50.
“It also highlighted that employers in the sector estimate a 16% increase in headcount by 2027, although our latest LFT forecast puts this figure at 48% by 2030.
“We recognise that addressing skills shortages in the water sector requires a collaborative, multi-agency approach that includes employers, governments, training providers and the ECITB.
“So, we’re calling on all of the sector to work together to help increase the pool of people joining the industry, while continuing to train and upskill existing workers.
“By investing in the workforce, the industry has a fighting chance of closing the skills gap and ensuring the sector has the skilled workforce it needs both for now and the future.”
