IN Brief:
- CITB provided £120m in total grants during the 2025–26 financial year.
- Apprenticeship grants supported 30,837 apprentices and 10,410 construction employers.
- Small and micro businesses accounted for 9,258 of the employers supported through apprenticeship grants.
CITB supported 30,837 apprentices through apprenticeship grants in the 2025–26 financial year, as construction continues to face a sustained labour and skills gap.
The Construction Industry Training Board said it provided £120m in total grants over the year, including £68m in apprenticeship grants. Those apprenticeship grants supported 10,410 construction employers, of which 9,258 were small and micro businesses.
CITB’s Travel to Train grant supported 3,794 learners and 1,217 employers, with £8.2m provided to help cover travel and accommodation costs for block-release training in England, Scotland, and Wales. The grant is designed to reduce the practical barrier of distance where apprentices need to attend training away from their workplace or local area.
Qualification grants formed another part of the funding package. CITB data for April 2025 to March 2026 shows that 22,690 learners and 3,088 employers received £21.7m of qualification grant support. Of the employers supported through qualification grants, 2,185 were small and micro businesses.
Deb Madden, executive director, customer engagement and operations at CITB, said the organisation is committed to supporting construction skills development and helping employers take on new people and train their existing workforce. She said sustained recruitment and training are critical to avoiding labour shortages that risk project delays and increased costs.
The figures sit against a difficult workforce outlook. CITB’s Construction Workforce Outlook forecasts construction output growth averaging 2.1% a year to 2029 and estimates that the industry will need an average of 47,000 extra workers each year to meet demand.
That capacity gap has been widening across several fronts. Ageing demographics, weak inflows, retention losses, regional training access, and limited productivity improvement are all weighing on delivery capability. The latest grant data adds a funding view to that challenge: support is reaching tens of thousands of learners, but future labour demand remains larger than any single intervention can resolve.
The concentration of small and micro employers among grant recipients is particularly important. Smaller contractors make up a large share of construction employment, yet they often face the steepest barriers to apprenticeship recruitment. Supervision time, workload uncertainty, administration, cashflow, and suitable training access can all affect whether a small business can take on and retain an apprentice.
Travel-to-train funding also highlights a persistent weakness in the training system. Construction skills provision is not always located where project demand or employer need is strongest. Block-release training can impose real costs on employers and learners, especially in rural or dispersed labour markets.
Supporting travel and accommodation does not fix the geography of training provision, but it can reduce the risk that distance stops an apprenticeship from being viable. That is especially relevant where specialist trades require training that is not available close to the employer.
The next challenge is retention. Apprenticeship starts and grant-supported learner numbers are vital indicators, but the industry ultimately needs qualified workers who stay in construction, progress into productive roles, and build competence over time.
That requires good site experience, supervision, safe working environments, visible progression routes, and enough workload continuity to convert training into long-term employment. CITB’s latest figures show that grant funding is still doing heavy lifting for the training pipeline; the pressure now is to turn that support into sustained careers.
