Some bricklayers now earning OVER £125,000 due to shortages

Some bricklayers now earning OVER £125,000 due to shortages as industry bosses fear government target of 300,000 new homes a year will be missed unless more are trained

Some bricklayers are now earning over £125,000 due to shortages as industry bosses fear the government’s target of 300,000 new homes a year will be missed unless more bricklayers are trained.

Bosses say the training surge is needed as there are now just 70,000 bricklayers.

Hodgkinson Builders boss Ian Hodgkinson, 59, said there needs to be more emphasis on training and encouragement on choosing bricklaying as a career.

‘I started as an apprentice and worked my way up,’ Mr Hodgkinson, who runs the Derby-based business, added. ‘Now I run around 80 bricklayers.

‘Some of the juniors can earn £1,000 a week. The more senior £2,500 a week.’

Some builders are now earning over £125,000 due to shortages as industry bosses fear the government’s target of 300,000 new homes a year will be missed unless more bricklayers are trained (stock image of a bricklayer)

According to The Sun, Downing Street will relax visa rules for builders to boost numbers.

A campaign by the publication, called Builder Better Britain, is backed by Apprenticeship minister Robert Halfon.

Mr Halfon claims the government is helping make people’s dreams of owning a house a reality. 

He said this was as a result of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill which would speed up the planning system, and the £11.5billion that had been put into building affordable homes. 

But average house prices have increased almost twice as much as the wages of the average UK worker over the past fifty years.

A campaign by the publication, called Builder Better Britain, is backed by Apprenticeship minister Robert Halfon (pictured)

A campaign by the publication, called Builder Better Britain, is backed by Apprenticeship minister Robert Halfon (pictured)

And despite calls for young people to give up their Netflix account in order to get on the property ladder, Sky found last year that it would still take 450 years of doing so to save up enough for a deposit.

The average deposit was £54,000 in 2021 – £16,000 more than an annual salary was at the time.

For perspective, Sky found that simply giving up Netflix would have as much impact on your chances of purchasing a house as choosing to buy nine fewer eggs a month. 

In 1996, just 33 per cent of Brits needed to save more than six months’ worth of their salary for a deposit, that is now 78 per cent.