Listen to this story Members can listen to an AI-generated audio version of this article. 1.0x Audio narration uses an AI-generated voice. 0:00 0:00 Become a member to listen to this article Subscribe Hundreds of teenagers hoping to train as electricians, joiners and bricklayers are being turned away from colleges in West Yorkshire due to a severe lack of course places. Bradford College closed applications to all of its 16 to 18 construction courses this week after receiving 2,439 applications for 448 places. It expects around 700 applicants to be left without a place. Leeds College of Building, named as one of the government’s construction technical excellence colleges last year, told FE Week it has received more than 2,500 applications for around 1,000 places. It has not closed its books, but is running waiting lists for joinery, electrical, plumbing, brickwork and multiskills courses. It said it would be unable to take around 800 students. Keighley College, which also serves the Bradford area, said its electrical, fabrication and welding, and motor vehicle courses were at capacity, with applications across those areas up 40 per cent. The college, part of Luminate Education Group, said applicants were being directed to other providers, including Leeds College of Building. It means both Bradford and Keighley are signposting applicants to a college that is already running waiting lists. Applications to Bradford rose 46 per cent in a year, up from 1,673 in 2025-26. Electrical installation was the most oversubscribed, with 1,333 young people chasing 139 places. Chris Webb, principal of Bradford College, said it was “deeply frustrating” that young people who wanted to train for careers in construction couldn’t get college places. “Every learner turned away is a missed opportunity for a young person and for employers already struggling to recruit skilled workers,” he added. College cash reserves Bradford spent £1.2 million from its own cash reserves this year on construction workshops at an industrial site on Bowling Back Lane, creating 250 extra places. It is the second time the college has paid to expand capacity itself. Webb said it spent £1.5 million two years ago to create 600 level 1 places, taking its own investment to £2.7 million. The college was unable to bid for a share of the £287 million in post-16 and construction capacity funding awarded by the Department for Education (DfE) last month, because that pot was open only to colleges in non-devolved areas. Colleges in West Yorkshire must instead go through the combined authority. A spokesperson told FE Week it was “investing a record amount into growing construction skills in our region, including £12 million of capital investment to create new spaces for young people, and a dedicated £8.6 million construction skills package to support adults into the sector too”. But the combined authority said that would not meet the growing needs of the region’s FE estate, and that much of the space that does exist is the wrong kind, with a surplus of A Level classrooms and a deficit of construction and engineering workshops. Bradford College said it was also close to capacity in health and social care, computing, sport, business, and beauty and barbering, but expected to absorb growth in those areas because they do not need the infrastructure, equipment and space that trades provision requires. Leeds City Council, alongside Greater Manchester Combined Authority, received a share of £20 million in post-16 capacity cash in 2025-26, which the DfE said went to the places with greatest need. Those funds were not available for Bradford. Luminate said the college had created more internal space, leased additional space and planned to extend its construction department. ‘We need to borrow’ Leeds College of Building spent its £2 million share on a former Vodafone site next to its city centre campus. A larger project would create 2,100 places from 2028, but Nikki Davis, the college’s chief executive, said it was £10 million short even after committing its own funds and assuming a share of technical excellence college capital funding through the combined authority. Davis said available capital funding was too small to make an impact in Leeds. The alternative, she said, was the ability to borrow Colleges were reclassified as public sector organisations in November 2022, meaning new commercial borrowing needs DfE consent. The department’s own guidance says that because commercial lenders have higher costs, colleges are in practice very unlikely to meet the value-for-money test. She said a proposal to let colleges borrow, with West Yorkshire as a test case, had made no progress despite the combined authority being willing. With access to commercial borrowing, she said, the project would be fully on track The combined authority spokesperson said: “We cannot succeed in our mission when talented young people are being turned away from brilliant institutions like Bradford College and the Leeds College of Building because of a lack of places on vital programmes like construction. “We welcome the government’s pledge to put technical and academic education on an equal footing. That must now translate into true devolution of nationally prescribed funds, so that we can deliver both the right amount and type of space for our young people to train in.” It is also asking the DfE for the power to lend capital to colleges, and for full devolution of national pots including the £625 million construction skills package. ‘The future workforce our city needs’ Bradford College said 4.1 per cent of 16 and 17-year-olds in the city were not in education, employment or training (NEET) or had an unknown destination, against a national average of 5.6 per cent. It estimated that this equated to around 750 young people and would double if the 700 applicants the college cannot place found no alternative. Naz Shah, Labour MP for Bradford West, said the city had worked hard to reduce NEET levels, but that colleges were now being forced to turn applicants away because they had no more teaching space. “We must look at how we can better serve the changing needs of vocational education,” she said. “To achieve economic growth, housing, infrastructure and regeneration, we need to further invest in the skills system needed to deliver them. These young people are the future workforce our city and country needs.” Shah said she backed the college’s call for urgent action, and that she believed “the government under the new prime minister is taking this area more seriously”.
Peter Marples 7 August 2026 So what is the problem for Leeds college of building. Looking at their accounts for 2024/25 although takes a while to find them as not on their web site ! They are clearly trading well and managing their finances well with all external debt paid down and £4m in the bank. The issue doesn’t appear to be lagged funding, the issue is they want a handout from dwp for capital. It is not difficult to get a warehouse or building, with a signficant rent free period and indeed a contribution to capital and get it open in a matter of weeks. The return on revenue v outlay would be a matter of months Goes to show the leadership of these organisations who are paid very well cannot think of anything else other than hand outs Welcome to the world of private training providers where they get not one penny of support but still build or occupy great premises, often with no debt. In the case of my business, we opened 38 centres wholly on rent free periods and capital contributions from landlords, its called being commercial
Phil Clark 7 August 2026 It’s a relief that we have experts like yourself, Peter Marples, thank goodness. Warehouses and other space opportunities are clearly not as easy an option as you might suggest, otherwise colleges across the country would all be snapping them up. On top of a slack of space for delivery, finding the right teachers with the right qualifications is currently almost impossible. There isn’t a college in the country that wants to turn away learners, but every college in the country has its limitations, based on my comments above.
Steve Hewitt 7 August 2026 Would be nice if other commenters read the article. The college WANTS to borrow to build these new centres (and build them well, rather than just do things on the cheap) rather than rely on “handouts” but is being stymied by DfE intransigence.
John Boyle 7 August 2026 That’s right. Since FEC & SFCs were brought back into the ‘public sector’ in 2022 and, therefore, on the Government’s Balance sheet, the Govt doesn’t like debt. Debt is fine so long as it is for capital investment and the college can afford to repay. With so much demand for places on bricklaying course, and with the demand by employers’ for bricklayers being so strong, from a business point of view it’s a ‘no brainer’. If colleges were still classified as being ‘private sector’ then, on face of just this information, it looks like a good lending proposal which their banker’s would relish.
Alan Green 7 August 2026 If the colleges in West Yorkshire or anywhere else in the country dont have sufficient workshops then let’s think outside the box here , its construction so let’s construct and educate on construction sites get the tutors out on site or maybe a designated part of the site pre apprenticeship perhaps, a great opportunity to bring college to the workplace save millions on building workshops and spend it on supporting employers to partner in this initiative. And whilst we may have difference of opinion in certain areas, Mr Marples makes a valid point a warehouse converts to a construction space easily. Imagine allowing students perhaps starting with more experienced apprentices build bays in that warehouse for orher students to use. The preferred idea is to use the workplace as a learning space, real life portraying classroom and site as workshop.
Peter Marples 7 August 2026 More than happy to use my expertise to do some deals on warehouses, rent free and with capital contributions. Give me a call, I am perfectly aware of the restrictions on debt but who is saying they need that and we have the continued paranoia about building when that takes time and you can be in within weeks and I mean weeks with a lease, And mr Clark, there is nothing in the article that says anything about the ability to recruit staff. It was all about buildings. I have sold the building issues within a few minutes and offered my expertise. If you want help recruiting the staff, happy to do the same. We did set up construction academies as well and very simple.
Anon 10 August 2026 Volume is a fashionable issue because of NEETs. (& the population bulge causing NEETs to go north of 1 million is conveniently overlooked) Many appear to have already concluded that more bums on more seats will solve the construction workforce and skills needs. If that were the case, then in the last few years alone with well over 1 million people doing these courses, you could be forgiven for wondering why the sector is short of so many workers. If anyone suggests that the current way of doing things is effective and that doing more of it will help industry, then it probably means they don’t fully understand the problem, or they’re selling something.