Traditional buildings represent a large proportion of England’s building stock. Around 20% of homes and around a third of non-domestic premises were built before 1919 – the date usually used to mark the transition from traditional to modern construction methods. These traditional buildings make a huge contribution to national, regional and local areas, providing a multitude of financial and non-financial benefits, especially where their environmental performance can be safely and effectively improved by ‘retrofitting’ energy saving measures. However, repairing, maintaining, restoring, altering and retrofitting traditional buildings requires very specific skills and materials. There has been longstanding concern about the availability of these skills.

Historic England commissioned Harlow Consulting to research the supply and demand for these skills and knowledge needs (current and future) and also map relevant qualifications. Drawing on the findings of a review of recent literature, extensive engagement with more than 40 stakeholders, a major survey of over 700 specialist traditional building contractors and two round table events, our report presents comprehensive insights into the demand for and supply of traditional building skills in England.

The findings highlighted the risk of a skills crisis with the potential to threatens the country’s heritage’s longevity and made recommendations for Historic England and stakeholders in relation to relevant actions to be taken. The final report was accompanied by a detailed Technical Annex explaining the approach taken towards modelling the data.