A theoretical and contextual framework for investigating trade and craft careers

Recruiting and retaining an adequate share of the UK workforce is vital to meeting the construction industry’s demands and sustaining its current growth. This requires the attraction of new employees, developing proactive approaches to Human Resource Development (HRD), and developing retention strategies. Career development programmes are required which can align the industry’s needs with the career expectations of the individual. However, despite the importance of such schemes to the trade and craft occupations, most research devoted to career development has a professional and managerial focus. A need to redress this imbalance is compounded by a variety of negative factors such as the scarcity of skilled people, falling recruitment levels and high employee turnover rates. The overall aim of the work reported in this paper is to develop a typology of trade and craft careers, to be used as a framework for supporting specific career development initiatives. The paper presents the theoretical framework to be used in analysing the career perspectives of a stratified sample of trade and craft employees. This will facilitate an examination of career development expectations, reconciled against the realities of working life and career development opportunity. The relevant literature is introduced, along with the direction of the future research.