Drylining has been dropped from this year’s Construction Skills Network (CSN) forecast ‘Blueprint for construction 2014-2018’. In previous years plastering and drylining have been featured but in this years report drylining has been dropped from the list construction occupations.

The report indicated that the annual recruitment requirement for new plasterers until 2018 would be 1,050 each year, last year the forecast for both plasterers and dryliners was 740 per annum.

The results of an extensive study of the interiors sector, funded by CITB and led by FPDC working in partnership the Association of Interior Specialists (AIS) and the National Association of Shopfitters (NAS) is helping to establish how tradesmen in the interiors sector gain skills and qualifications.

The initial findings of the interiors sector report found that there is a lack of new entrants coming into the sector and it’s not unusual for tradesmen to hold multiple job roles across the sector. In the wet construction trades16 per cent of operatives are multi-skilled and in the dry trades 66 per cent of operatives are multi-skilled.

CITB’s CSN forecast shows that housing will account for over a third  (37 per cent) of the UK’s total annual construction output between now and 2018. 182,000 construction jobs are set to be created in the next five years according to the new research released by CITB.

Over the next five years, employment growth will be a mixed bag across the UK, with East Anglia at the top end set to see its construction workforce increase by an average 2.0 per cent a year, while the West Midlands is predicted to experience an average reduction of 0.2 per cent;

For more information on the CSN and to read the full report, visit www.citb.co.uk/csn