The latest report on jobs from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG, compiled by S&P Global, found that in January 2024, overall demand for workers fell for the third month running, pointing to a cooling job market. Salaries are also increasing at their softest rate for nearly three years.

While some of this can be attributed to the shallow recession that the UK experienced in the last six months of 2024, it does look as if the job market will not heat back up to the post-pandemic level of 2022, when the level of unfilled job vacancies in the UK rose to a record 1.3 million. But what does it mean for the facilities management industry, which has struggled with skills shortages since before the pandemic? 

Michelle Connolly, Co-Founder and Director of 300 North FM, Property and Infrastructure Recruitment Experts, says that FM employers should not expect to see a huge surge in applicants for FM jobs any day soon. “The facilities management recruitment market is still seeing a noticeable shortage of candidates, largely due to an ageing workforce, a rise in long-term sickness in the working age population and a lack of visibility for FM among young people,” she says.

As an industry with low margins, FM has also historically been a low wage industry, particularly at the operational end of the sector. Clearly, low wages make any industry less attractive – but a growing number of companies within the sector are signing up to the Real Living Wage, which, unlike the minimum wage set by the Government, pays a wage based on the cost of living (currently £13.13 in London and £12 across the rest of the UK, as opposed to the £11 minimum wage). FM companies face an additional challenge in getting their client partners on board with paying higher wages, but Cleanology and Corps Security are leading the charge in changing this; Cleanology’s CEO Dominic Ponniah recently took over from Corps Security’s CEO Mike Bullock as Co-Chair of the Living Wage’s Recognised Service Provider Leadership Group – a dedicated group of leaders who recognise and promote the commercial advantages of the Real Living Wage in improving recruitment and attrition. “We want to support other businesses in any way we can on their journey to adopting the Real Living Wage so they too can realise the mutual benefits,” Ponniah says.

 

However, as pointed out by Connolly, low wages are only one of the reasons why the FM sector is struggling with talent shortages. A lack of professional development opportunities, coupled with FM’s lack of visibility as a professional career path, has meant that FM has lost colleagues (and potential colleagues) to other industries. At the other end of the spectrum, the average age of a facilities manager in the UK is 49 (according to one 2019 report by IFMA), meaning that the industry is expected to lose even more skilled staff to retirement.

This is a challenge that many FM companies are working hard to counter. “We are seeing a concerted effort by FM companies to combat this in various ways, looking at how they can retain staff by creating opportunities for redeployment within their organisations, a move that prioritises staff and maintains internal company knowledge,” Connolly says. 

As covered elsewhere in this month’s PFM, facilities management hiring teams are also exploring alternative talent pipelines, from retired people who’d still like to earn an income, to disadvantaged people who experience barriers to employment, such as care leavers, ex-offenders, and people struggling with homelessness. Apprenticeships are also increasingly being explored as a means of bringing people in and upskilling them.

 

Changes within the FM sector itself mean that companies are also looking to a hire a ‘new breed’ of recruits. A dearth of trained engineers has been a challenge that FM/construction has experienced for some time, but as the industries become increasingly tech-led, this has added to the urgency in recruiting people with technical skills. However, as Connolly points out, these skills can often be learned on the job. “We’re seeing an increase in interest in skills like adaptability and agility in the jobseekers FM businesses are looking for, focusing on attitudes and ability, knowing that more technical skills can be taught and developed,” she states.

“FM businesses are also aware of the increased focus in the sector on technological shifts, including a move to incorporate AI into FM software, sustainability, Net Zero targets and ESG goals, and their role in tackling the continued flux of changes to working including hybrid models and 4-day weeks,” she continues. “Each of these is forming a considerable part of long-term strategic plans in FM businesses and will need dedicated workforce planning to ensure the specific skills needed to advance these focuses are brought into the business in order to do so successfully.”

“The FM sector already struggles with recruitment of several specific roles such as engineers, project managers and people with PFI specific knowledge and skills, and these staffing bottlenecks will continue to cause strain on business and current resource without planning and training provision,” she adds.

FM’s lack of visibility – including the fact that it is rarely promoted within schools and universities as a career choice – is a significant drawback when it comes to recruiting. It’s also something that many in the sector are working to change. The University of Bolton is one of just two universities in the country (the other being the University of Gloucester) that offers the chance to study for a degree in facilities management. The University of Bolton’s dual award BSc (Hons) Facilities and Built Asset Management (Senior/Head of Facilities Management Degree Apprenticeship) enables candidates to study for a dedicated FM degree while working. 

Anna Williamson, who leads the programme, told PFM that the course is attracting students mainly from the operational side of FM, working at a reasonably senior level but looking to bridge the gap between operational and strategic knowledge, with the first cohort joining in January 2022. “That's the first cohort nationally of people who have worked for a long time in FM, who felt that they wanted to formalise all that learning, all that activity that they've done in their workplace as a degree – and the way that they can do that is as a degree apprenticeship,” she said.

Williamson sees degree apprenticeships as an organic way of addressing skills gaps in the FM industry – but at the moment the only formalised courses, such as hers, target people already in the industry, rather than bringing new people in. This is something she hopes will change going forwards; while degree apprenticeships could prove a valuable tool for employers looking to develop and progress individuals within their organisation, in the short term at least, they’ll need to continue looking outside the box for new talent. 

Although positive change is happening, it looks as if 2024 will continue to be a challenging year for FM in terms of skills shortages. Connolly points out that this is where recruitment companies such as 300 North FM come in. “Specialist recruiters who understand the demands on the sector and the workforce are therefore crucial to ongoing talent planning and sourcing and engaging new talent, especially when brought in to work in partnership with internal teams and hiring managers,” she states.