Traditional building skills are essential for the repair and maintenance of Scotland’s traditional buildings. With the Scottish Housing Condition Survey 2016 highlighting that 67% of Scotland’s traditionally built homes are not wind and watertight, these skills will be needed in the long-term to ensure Scotland’s rich built heritage is enjoyed by future generations.

You are asked to take ten minutes to complete this online survey to give the Scottish Government the information required to make strategic decisions about the funding of traditional building skills.

Historic Environment Skills Investment Plan: Employers Survey

Skills has been identified as a key priority for the Historic Environment sector in Scotland. The sector covers a number of broad market areas spanning historic and listed buildings and sites, the built environment, conservation areas, gardens/designed landscapes, historic landscapes, etc.

It also encompasses a large range of professions, occupations, casual and volunteering roles that cross over a number of sectors, including Construction, Creative Industries, Professional Services, and Tourism. In addition, it is recognised that some employers’ involvement in the Historic Environment sector will represent a small proportion of their business activity.

Skills Development Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland has appointed EKOS to develop a Historic Environment Skills Strategy and Action Plan which sets out the main skills issues for the sector and solutions for how these can be best addressed.

As part of the research, we are keen to hear from employers on the skills challenges facing the sector, and the main skills gaps – traditional/specialist skills, professional skills (e.g. archivists and curators, archaeology, surveying, architects), and supporting skills (e.g. leadership and management, digital). We are also interested in finding out more about the kinds of actions and responses which will be required to address challenges around workforce development and up-skilling.

We are interested to receive feedback from companies and organisations spanning the whole spectrum of involvement in the Historic Environment sector, from those involved only some of the time to those whose business activity is entirely based within the sector.

You can access the survey by clicking here: Historic Environment SIP – Employers Survey

The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete. The deadline for responses is Friday 30th March 2018.