HUNDREDS OF people, young and old, came to a careers event at Tower Hamlets Town Hall to find out about jobs in the construction industry. The event was held on 2nd July, with the Council sending out a press release on 10th July.

The event was organised by the Council’s excellent employment and skills service – Workpath. This service is not just there to advertise vacancies – it supports residents throughout their search for work.

Residents know that Tower Hamlets is full of construction. It is actually the fastest growing place in the country in terms of population and development. Construction should be a natural career choice for young residents in the borough – but it’s not.

The Construction Careers Showcase 2026 tackled one of the reasons why residents don’t aspire to work in construction – lack of awareness of the different jobs in the industry. Job seekers were able to talk to a range of employers. They could even try out skills such as drilling and plastering.

Solving the second factor which holds potential workers back is training. There have been various attempts to improve local training opportunities, but none has lasted. Back in 1986 the Lib-Dem Administration closed Poplar Baths, filled the swimming pool with concrete and tried to run the building as a Construction Training Centre. It didn’t last. (The Baths lay dormant for years, until Mayor Lutfur Rahman, working with the local community, managed to dig the concrete out and open the building as a sports and leisure centre again.)

Over the years, there were tiny projects here and there which tried to train people in one or more of the construction skills. None of them tackled the lack of formal post-16 training opportunities in the borough. Hackney College’s new campus in Shoreditch ran construction courses, and this helped a bit – but overall training was just not taken seriously. Some youngsters had to travel to Barking College to find training in construction skills – and that’s a long journey from Tower Hamlets.

Cllr Shenaly Miah, Cabinet Member for Jobs, Enterprise, Skills and Growth, attended the event and gave a rather mixed message about the industry. She said, “This was a fantastic opportunity for people to experience some of the different jobs that are part of the construction industry. It isn’t just about laying bricks, our event showed there are jobs behind desks as well as out on site. There’s a lot of opportunities and progression in construction and this is certainly the case in Tower Hamlets.”

Now Workpath, the Council and Cllr Miah need to work together to embed training options in Tower Hamlets, where local people of all ages can access them. Given the high number of developers working in the borough, it should be possible to bring them in as partners in schemes to train people and give them work experience. Some planning agreements include “social value” requirements, offering a commitment that the developer will take on a small number of apprentices, etc. We need this to be developed much further.

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