Politics Home | Good growth in every postcode means building homes

The housebuilding and construction industry knows the market is under real pressure. Around 300,000 new homes a year are required to deliver what Britain needs. But we are only building around two-thirds of that, and the pipeline behind that number is shrinking rather than growing. NHBC registered 29,162 new homes in the second quarter of 2026, 4 per cent down on last year, after a 6 per cent fall in the first quarter. Fewer homes registered today means fewer homes completed next year and the year after.

A big part of the issue for developers has been uncertainty. It is harder for prospective buyers to afford their mortgages with rates much higher over the last few years compared to pre-pandemic. Added to this, significant supply cost increases mean the cost of building a house is much higher. With material uncertainty in the system about the viability of new housing, developers are building fewer homes.

Against that backdrop, MHCLG took a significant step under Angela Rayner’s leadership. The 10-year £39bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme will provide funding to support the delivery of around 300,000 new social and affordable homes. Alongside this, Andy Burnham’s ambitious council housebuilding programme, the biggest since the post-war period, will provide much-needed demand certainty for years to come. For the first time in decades, the sector will be able to look at a substantial part of the development pipeline and see funded demand stretching out over ten years. This certainty will support the wider market – from housing associations and councils to builders and training providers and most importantly help more families benefit from the security and stability of a safe, warm home.

Funding creates the pipeline, but skilled workers turn it into homes. The Fabian Society recently highlighted the stark skills challenges facing construction. Tackling the Built Environment Skills Crisis explores issues such as an ageing workforce, the high costs of training and the impact of labour shortages on project delivery and quality. 36 per cent of UK construction workers are over 50, with up to 700,000 expected to retire by the early 2040s – in an industry that has a higher density of skills shortage vacancies than any other.

To make matters worse, only 50 per cent of construction employers reported investing in workforce training during the previous year, with investment per employee also falling by 19 per cent in real terms since 2017.

The National Audit Office, the UK’s independent public spending watchdog, has similar concerns. Increasing Construction Skills shows we need nearly 900,000 extra construction workers to build 1.5m homes, deliver the Warm Homes Plan, and contribute to at least £725bn of infrastructure funding commitments.

More recruits alone will not be enough. High-quality homes require a high-skilled workforce to build them. This has never mattered more, because the homes that will be delivered over the coming decades have to meet stringent quality standards. We are asking for more competence at a time the workforce needs to grow faster than it has in a generation.

NHBC has a distinctive perspective on this. Through our inspections focused on construction quality, and our 90 years of expertise, we see how homes are built and how they perform long after handover. That gives us a practical, long-term view of what drives quality in new homes. Repeatedly, that experience reinforces a simple point: the quality of a home depends on the skill of the people who build it.

With social housing the stakes are higher still. These homes are for people least able to cope when a home performs poorly: a poorly detailed wall or window can become a heating bill a tenant struggles to afford. The aim of the Social and Affordable Homes Programme needs to not just be to build more homes, but to build quality homes that give families everywhere safety, warmth and long-term security.

I have spent my career in insurance and one thing this industry teaches you is to think in years and decades. Viewed over the long term, the idea that speed and quality are competing priorities quickly falls away. Defects identified during construction cause delay; defects discovered years later cost far more. The most efficient way to build is to build right first time, to a high standard – and that starts with skilled people on site.

None of this sits on one set of shoulders. Government has set the ambition and announced policies that will help to give the industry the certainty it needs, through the £625m construction skills package and beyond. Every builder who takes on an apprentice is investing in the whole industry’s future.

Training providers have a responsibility to produce people who are ready for a live site, not just an exam. That matters because a country that values the hard hat as much as the graduation cap must create training routes that lead quickly and credibly into skilled work. That is where NHBC has put its money, firmly backing the government’s ambitions.

We are investing £100m in twelve multi-skill training hubs, developed with partners across the industry, where apprentices train in bricklaying, groundworks, site carpentry and timber frame installation in realistic site conditions, to the same NHBC Standards their work will be inspected against. Through concentrated blocks of learning they qualify in 14 to 18 months, roughly half the time of traditional routes, with achievement, retention and pass rates significantly higher than the national average.

The government has made a serious long-term commitment to social and affordable housebuilding, and should now create a pipeline for the industry to invest in. Only then can the sector have the confidence to begin the necessary hiring, training, and upskilling to produce the homes we need in every postcode.

In June, in Manchester, Andy Burnham set out his economic vision and asked a simple but powerful question: if you do not give people a good home, what chance do they have of a good life? We agree. At NHBC we believe that everyone deserves a quality home.

The Prime Minister is right: everything starts with a good home. Good growth in every postcode will depend on homes that are safe, warm and built to last – and on continued investment in the skills and training needed to build them well.

Paul Turner is the Chief Executive of NHBC, the UK’s leading independent provider of warranty and insurance for new-build homes. NHBC’s purpose is to raise standards in house building by championing high-quality homes and protecting homeowners.