Mayo named in the top five counties for doing a trade apprenticeship
New research from Fieldmotion, a field service management software used by tradespeople across Ireland, has analysed a range of metrics to reveal which Irish counties are best for doing a trade apprenticeship.
The research comes as the country is facing a labour shortage in the construction industry with roughly 54,000 fewer employees than at its 2007 peak. While the construction sector currently employs over 177,600 people, to meet the housing and infrastructure goals set by the government, 100,000 additional roles are required by 2030, roughly 25,000 per year.
Fieldmotion built a Trade Apprenticeship Index using five metrics. The average rent for a double room in a house, the distance to the nearest technological university campus, and three CSO datasets.
These measured new homes commenced (the volume of building work taking place in each county), construction employees (the number of people employed by construction firms), and active construction enterprises (the number of construction businesses registered there, a good indicator of potential employment opportunities for apprentices).
Mayo came in second behind Waterford, with an index score of 67.85 out of 100. While the county recorded just 679 new home commencements, around half of Waterford’s total, it was boosted by its 2,392 active construction enterprises and one of the highest rates of construction employment in the country, at 365.9 workers per 10,000 people.
It had the third lowest straight-line distance from county town to a technological university (TU) campus at 0.8 km due to its Atlantic Technological University campus in Castlebar and the average rent price for a room in a shared house was among the 10 lowest in the country. Carlow, Wexford, and Meath made up the top five.
Kerry, Donegal, Tipperary, Galway and Westmeath made up the remainder of the top 10 with index scores of 66.19, 61.78, 58.5, 57.94 and 57.62 respectively.
Each of these counties host a TU campus where on many, phase 4 and 6 off the job training for apprenticeships take place. In 2021 Cork Institute of Technology (IT) and IT Tralee merged to form Munster TU, also that year Limerick IT and Athlone IT merged to form TU Shannon which has multiple campuses in Tipperary, and in 2022 Institutions of technology in Galway, Donegal and Mayo merged to create Atlantic TU.
Jerome Finnegan, Managing Director at Fieldmotion, said: “While this obviously shows where in Ireland is the best or most suitable to do a trade apprenticeship, I think it adds to a broader conversation about how important it is to make entry into the construction industry more streamlined and accessible, and how this is an essential part of easing the labour shortage the county is facing as we move into an era of massive investment in public infrastructure and projects.
"What we hear from businesses is that demand for skilled people is still very strong while experienced tradespeople are getting harder and harder to recruit, which makes bringing new talent through more urgent.”
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