Challenges facing small housing developers: survey

6. Staffing and subcontractors

This chapter addresses the following questions:

• How many apprentices do developers currently employ, and do they intend to retain apprentices once they have completed their apprenticeship?
• How many people do developers currently employ, and has this increased, stayed the same or decreased during the past three years?
• What subcontractors do developers use?

Apprentices

Respondents were asked about the number of apprentices that they currently employed. The results are set out in Table 6.1 below. More than half said that they did not currently employ any apprentices, whilst just under half said that they did.

Table 6.1: Number of apprentices currently employed

Of the 27 respondents who said that they currently employed apprentices, 25 said that they intended to retain them once they had complicated their apprenticeship, while two said that they did not. The latter two were then asked to explain why they did not intend to retain them once they had completed their apprenticeships. Both said that this was because they subcontracted all their labour and would not have positions available for them.

Employees

Respondents were asked how many, if any, people they currently employ. The results are set out in Table 6.2 below. Almost half said that they did not currently employ any people, and 24 said that they employed five or fewer people.

Table 6.2: Number of people currently employed

Respondents were then asked whether the number of people they employed had increased, stayed the same or decreased compared to three years ago. The majority of respondents said that their number of employees had either increased or stayed the same, while eleven said that it had decreased.

The 11 respondents who reported that the number of people they employ had decreased compared to three years ago were asked why this was the case.

• Building fewer properties due to financial constraints (4).
• Staff have left and not been replaced (2).
• Employment of an Full Time Equivalent (FTE) employee was terminated (1).
• Lack of local labour and apprenticeship training (1).
• Not enough sales (1).
• Previous company was forced into liquidation (1).
• Company has been mothballed (1).

Subcontractors

Respondents were asked which subcontractors they had used during the past three years. Most respondents had used a wide range of subcontractors. The results are set out in Table 6.3.

Table 6.3: Subcontractors used during the past three years

* Totals will not match bases as responses may be coded in more than one category.

Subcontractors specified by respondents who chose 'Other, please specify' included groundworks, landscaping, fencing, painting, civil engineering, decontamination, and foundation constriction.

Respondents were then asked what proportion of their work was subcontracted out. Twenty-one said all, 17 said most, 18 said some, and one said none.

Summary

Just under half of respondents currently employed apprentices. Most respondents who currently employed apprentices intended to retain them once they had completed their apprenticeship.

For most respondents, their number of employees had either increased or stayed the same during the past three years. Although almost half of respondents did not currently employ any staff.

Most respondents used a wide range of subcontractors, and more than one in three subcontracted out all their work.