A Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) report has found a massive drop in the proportion of self-employed workers with a rise in direct employment.
The workforce mobility research, carried out last year but only published last week, found 33 per cent of the industry were self-employed in 2025, down from 42 per cent in 2022.
Over the same period, the proportion directly employed rose from 48 per cent to 59 per cent, the highest level since 2012.
“This feels like a subtle structural change within the industry and may reflect the need of employers to cultivate a stable, reliable and controlled workforce to deliver projects and the desire from workers to have greater job security – perhaps in response to increases in the cost of living and house prices, particularly in the past two to three years,” the report said.
It noted that self-employment and temporary working remain common as they are an “inevitable part of the project-based nature of the industry”.
The report, based on a survey of 3,611 workers carried out by BMG Research, said the highest proportion of self-employed workers were based in Northern Ireland and the West Midlands, where both stood at 52 per cent.
The researchers added: “Compared with two to three years ago, workers appear more resistant to changing roles, taking on more responsibility, travelling long distances to work, formally upskilling, and moving between sub-sectors, reducing the flow of experience between projects and limiting the transfer of skills, knowledge and working practices across the industry.”
It urged caution in interpreting its data as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Labour Force Survey did not show the same findings.
The proportion of the industry that is self-employed increased to 39 per cent in March 2026, from 37 per cent in March 2022, according to the statistics body.
A CITB spokesperson pointed out that separate statistics published as ONS Workforce Jobs data showed an increase in the proportion directly employed.
This showed a decline to 28 per cent self-employed, from 32 per cent between March 2022 and March 2026.
University of Reading professor emeritus of construction management Stuart Green told Construction News: “All stats about employment status in construction have to be treated with caution. Even the official ONS stats have long been held to underestimate the true level of self-employment in the sector. Methodological difficulties abound.”
But he added: “In the current economic climate, it beggars belief that there’s any shift back to direct employment. The increase in National Insurance and the minimum wage are well talked about.”
He said that asking people to confirm their own employment status is “notoriously unreliable”.
“More of their interviewees may well ‘claim’ to be directly employed but that’s not the same as saying it’s a fact. Contingent labour of course is always the first to be shed when times are hard, and much less likely to agree to be interviewed.
“Concern about right to work status is a direct disincentive to agree to be interviewed. Others worry about their tax status. So sampling people on the basis of agreeing to be interviewed is always prone to bias.”
The researchers visited construction projects with a value of £250,000 or more, between June and November 2025.
They were only allowed to interview workers at 53 per cent of the sites they visited.
A CITB spokesperson said the research would inform its future strategy, particularly the report’s findings that workers are less willing to travel for jobs than in the past.
“The findings of the workforce mobility research show that skills strategies must become more place based, which we’re already working towards, having established partnerships with mayoral strategic authorities and regional leaders to better understand local labour market needs and support action plans aligned to regional priorities,” they said.
In 2021, the government said it wanted to encourage contractors to reduce their reliance on the self-employed, a move that was welcomed by unions and industry leaders. The discussion coincided with changes to off-payroll tax rules IR35, designed to discourage tax avoidance by making medium and large companies responsible for checking the tax status of their contractors and subcontractors.
Article Courtesty of Construction News (www.constructionnews.co.uk)
