At South and City College in Birmingham, dozens of young people in hi-vis vests and hard hats are building mini-walls and plastering half-formed rooms. In a few days, these walls will be demolished and the plastering scraped away for a new class to try their hands. This is the new generation of Britain's construction workers, eager to rise to the task of building the 1.5 million new homes the government has repeatedly proclaimed will solve the country's housing crisis. But despite ploughing ahead with extensive planning reform and cutting affordable housing targets and accessibility requirements in the name of a "Build Baby Build" philosophy, many in the sector think reaching the 1.5 million target is impossible.

Just over 300,000 homes were added to the housing stock in the first 18 months of the new parliament, according to government estimates - nearly a third short of the pace needed to meet the manifesto target. For years, experts have been ringing alarm bells about a growing skills crisis in the construction industry - there were 140,000 job vacancies stalling essential housing and infrastructure projects in 2025, according to Places for People, and it is forecast a third of construction workers will retire by 2035. Staff at South and City College say the problem isn't a skills crisis but an opportunities crisis. Their courses - from brickwork and plumbing to electrical and carpentry - are busier than ever. They're expanding their Longbridge campus to accommodate the rising demand, increasing class sizes and putting on extra cohorts. More than 62,500 adults enrolled to study for a qualification in construction in England last academic year, according to the Department for Education data. It was the fastest-growing field of study in adult education, with enrolments up by nearly a third since 2021.

"We could fill most of our eight campuses with the demand in construction alone," said Rebecca Waterfield, executive director of business development at the college. "What frustrates us is that I only had three brick apprentices start this year. So if there is such a big skill shortage, we've got the young people, but we need to work in collaboration with industry to make sure they're going into those jobs." The government has promised to train 40,000 new builders, bricklayers, electricians, carpenters and plumbers to help "turbocharge" building rates and help the working classes. "They're going to hit that easily. That's the easy part. It's about how many of that 40,000 actually end up in a job in the construction industry," said faculty head Andy Thompson.

At Emerys builders merchants in Stoke-on-Trent, workers are busy organising and stacking materials but there aren't many customers around. "Just this morning we've had suppliers closing order books on those because of rising fuel costs," said managing director James Hipkins, as he pointed to insulation boards. "That's going to hold up housebuilding because companies just can't get what they need." UK-produced brick prices are 80% up compared to a decade ago, ONS data shows. The cost of insulating materials, metal screws and precast concrete rose by about 50% in four years since 2021, while raw materials prices such as sand, gravel, cement and paint increased by about 30%. The result is that housebuilders can't afford to buy as much. "We're way adrift of those housebuilding targets and we can't see how it's going to get better," said John Newcomb, CEO of the Builders Merchants Federation. By their analysis, across the sector, £1.4 billion was invested by manufacturers and merchants to increase capacity in the materials supply chain in anticipation of a housebuilding boom which has yet to materialise - in the last year, 24 BMF members have gone into insolvency, and five more into administration.

At Woodberry Down in north London, diggers are demolishing a block of flats, phase four of a regeneration project to replace 2,000 homes - mostly council housing - with nearly 6,000 new ones that has already taken 15 years and won't be finished until 2035. Berkeley Homes, the developer in charge that builds 10% of London's homes, is at the frontline of what has been described as a total collapse of housebuilding in the capital - only 3,248 new private homes began construction in London in the first nine months of 2025, less than 5% of the government's forthcoming target of 88,000 per year. "Economically, housebuilding is in a worse position than we were in 2010 after the financial crash," said Rob Perrins, executive chair of Berkeley Group. Earlier this month, Berkeley Group announced it would stop buying new land and hiring new staff due to the impact of "geopolitical volatility", weak demand from buyers and "unprecedented" increases in costs and regulation. Perrins said consumer hesitancy was the worst he had ever seen - now, one in three people who reserve one of their properties ends up cancelling, up from 15% a year ago.

Experts say the country's increasing reliance on a few large housebuilders to create most of its new housing stock - in England, about 40% of all new homes were built by the 11 largest developers in 2022 - is a fundamental issue. "They're private companies, they're expected to make a profit," said Dr Jonathan Webb, principal research fellow at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University. "The government are going to struggle to meet that 1.5 million target and also make those homes affordable because there's a fundamental misalignment in terms of what the government want to do and the interests of the people they're ultimately reliant on to build those homes." Since coming to power in 2024, Labour have made planning reform a cornerstone of their policy - they've reinstated mandatory housing targets for local authorities, introduced a "grey belt" to bypass some green belt restrictions, and reduced the power of local planning committees. They're also consulting on a new policy that would create a presumption of approval for any housing development within walking distance of a train or tram station. "It's generational change - we've not seen anything like this since the 90s," said Robert Boughton, CEO of Thakeham, a south-east-based housebuilder. "It's not a free for all, but it's night and day from where we were previously."