White-collar workers across the country are ditching their desk jobs and learning a trade, leading to a surge in applicants for college courses. As AI capabilities continue to grow, an increasing number of workers are turning to manual labour jobs that cannot be replaced by a computer. Colleges are now struggling to keep up with the demand for new places, which are filling fast for construction, plumbing and other trade courses.
Leeds College of Building turns away hundreds
Leeds College of Building, the UK's only further education college dedicated to construction, turned away more than 600 applicants last September. The school has more than 300 students on its waiting list for subjects such as plastering, electricals and plumbing. Evening courses are also full, with adult learners on another hefty waiting list to learn a new skill as they look to move out of their day job.
Diverse applicants from banking to physiotherapy
Bankers, physiotherapists, accountants and logistics workers are among those who have applied for a trade course at Barnet and Southgate College. Arbnor Isufaj, a plumbing lecturer, said the adult learners have been enticed towards plumbing due to the earnings potential and its relative immunity to AI. The popularity of the courses has spread across the country, with 86 per cent of colleges now having waiting lists for construction courses, according to the Association of Colleges (AOC). Courses for plumbing and carpentry are struggling to keep up with demand as white collar workers look for a stable job which is safe from AI.
Accountant swaps Nike for construction
Sophane Grey spent 30 years working as an accountant at Nike and Cisco, before she decided to make the move into construction. The 52-year-old became weary of her old routine and in October 2024, quit her job to train up in a trade. However she soon discovered that the demand for places was high and she was forced to wait nine months before starting a course. She told The Times: 'I tried five different campuses, but everything was full. I’d initially wanted to get onto electrical or plumbing, but the waiting lists were even longer'.
Ms Grey is now part-way through a qualification in construction skills at Capital City College in Holloway, north London. She is learning carpentry, painting and decorating, and bricklaying in a class where she is the only woman alongside 14 male teenagers. She is hoping to get a place on a course in solar energy and domestic retrofitting in September.
Colleges overwhelmed by demand
Colleges are struggling to cope with the demand for places. At Barnet and Southgate College, the waiting list for places has reached 306. Hardeep Singh, head of the construction department, said he had never seen a waiting list in his 17-year career before demand suddenly exploded. Most colleges have already been forced to close enrolments for courses this September.
Funding and teacher shortages exacerbate crisis
A lack of funding, teacher shortages and caps on pupil numbers have led to the places becoming oversubscribed. Further education colleges are provided with a 'base subsidy' for a capped number of training courses, but this rarely covers the full cost of training. As a result, colleges are relying on fees from private students and employer-funded apprenticeships to make up the money.
The Labour government has a target to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029, meaning construction workers should be kept busy for the next five years. In March 2025, Rachel Reeves announced plans to invest more than £600 million into training new construction workers. The colleges have said that the government's lag system for funding is preventing them from offering more places. The current system means that colleges and further education courses receive funding for the number of students they taught in the previous year.
In September 2025, this meant colleges had to absorb the extra £220 million cost of taking on an additional 32,000 students, in anticipation of the government covering it this year. The government had pledged investment to ensure 'real-terms per-pupil funding in the next academic year in a white paper. However, it then later said it would only pay out a third of the cost of these courses.
Newcastle College Group (NCG), which operates seven colleges, said this meant it was left with a £3.6 million hole in its finances for 500 unfunded extra pupils. More than 170 college chiefs warned the Prime Minister that the government’s budget squeeze will force them to turn away 20,000 students this September, 15,000 of those on construction courses.
