IN Brief:
- A Tees Valley pilot has turned a short-format groundworks course into six full-time job offers from seven participants.
- The programme combined employer interviews, CSCS Green Card training, and practical site-readiness modules shaped around live groundworks requirements.
- Partners now want to extend the model across a wider regional civils market as demand for site-ready labour remains firm.
A Tees Valley pilot designed to bring new entrants into groundworks has converted training into employment at unusual speed, with six of seven participants moving straight into full-time roles as regional contractors look for faster ways to build site-ready labour.
Esh Construction has taken on three of those recruits after helping shape the programme alongside the North East Institute of Technology, Civil Engineering Contractors Association North East, Tees Valley Combined Authority, Hartlepool College of Further Education, and Seymour Civil Engineering. The bootcamp was developed around demand from civils, housing, utilities, and regeneration work across Tees Valley and the wider North East, where employers continue to face pressure in recruiting groundworkers with the right mix of site awareness, practical competence, and certification.
Participants first attended a meet-the-employers session before moving into an intensive three-week programme delivered through Seymour’s Skills Academy in Hartlepool, with Hartlepool College as accredited provider. Alongside practical training aligned to general civils and housing infrastructure pathways, learners completed CSCS Green Card requirements and a curriculum built around safe digging and excavation, plant and vehicle marshalling, manual handling, work at height, asbestos awareness, and broader health, safety, and environmental practice.
That structure addresses a shortage that is not simply about attracting people into construction, but about getting new starters from initial interest to productive site work without a long lag between recruitment, certification, and supervised deployment. By compressing that period, and tying training to live vacancies rather than abstract course outcomes, the pilot has given employers a clearer route into entry-level recruitment while reducing the risk of candidates dropping out between training and employment.
Sharon Grant, director at NEIoT, said: “Employers and partners came together in March 2025 and identified a clear need for a practical, employer-led solution that could remove barriers to entry, accelerate training and connect participants directly with live job opportunities.”
The regional significance is larger than the cohort size suggests. Groundworks sits at the front end of delivery for housing, drainage, utilities, roads, and enabling works, so shortages in these roles tend to ripple across programme sequencing. Where contractors cannot secure labour for excavation, drainage installation, foundations, and site preparation, downstream trades and project timetables absorb the disruption.
Esh said its new starters will rotate across different parts of the civils infrastructure division, giving them exposure to a wider range of project types rather than narrowing them immediately into one delivery stream. That has implications for retention as much as recruitment, particularly in a labour market where the wider industry is competing for the same pool of site-ready people.
With infrastructure, housing, and regeneration pipelines still expected to support future demand, the question now is whether the model can move from pilot to repeatable regional mechanism. The partners behind the programme believe it can, and further information on available courses is listed on Tees Valley’s Skills Bootcamps page.
