A conceptual demand led model founded on theories of labour market mismatch for the construction and building services industry.

Since the recession of the early nineties, the instability in the supply of construction and building services skills has resulted in a skills shortage, a skills mismatch, high unemployment and claimant rates, and the migration and immigration of labour. To redress these will require the development of a sensitive demand led skills acquisition model. Evidence to date, confirms the use of a variety of response strategies and models which have lacked theoretical foundations and have had very little success. This paper outlines the development of a conceptual model based on theories of labour market mismatch, and adopted from earlier work undertaken for forecasting methodology of national demand for construction labour. This approach has yet to be applied to sub-regional labour demand quantification in the UK construction and building services industry, and merits further investigation. The results of this investigation would form part of a continuing study towards “modelling the supply and demand for construction and building services skills in the Black Country”.