HES Calls for Heritage Workforce Boost as 80% of Employers Report Skills Gap

Four in five heritage employers in Scotland — 80% — report a skills gap in their workforce, according to Historic Environment Scotland, prompting the agency to call for a coordinated push to expand training, recruitment, and career pathways into the sector.

What is the scale of the shortfall?

The 80% figure positions heritage alongside some of the most talent-starved segments of the UK and Scottish labour market. A gap reported by such a large majority of employers is not a niche concern: it indicates a structural mismatch between the skills heritage organisations need and the pipeline of workers currently entering or staying in the field.

Historic Environment Scotland, the public body that looks after the country's historic sites and monuments, has framed the findings as evidence that the sector cannot meet demand without targeted intervention. The call for a "workforce boost" implies action on three fronts: attracting new entrants, upskilling existing staff, and retaining experienced practitioners who might otherwise leave the industry.

What does HES want employers and policymakers to do?

Although the agency has not, in the available reporting, set out a fully costed plan, the language of a "workforce boost" points to several recurring levers in heritage skills policy:

• Expanded apprenticeships and vocational routes into trades such as stonemasonry, conservation joinery, and roof work
• Greater coordination between further-education colleges and heritage employers on short-course provision
• Clearer career frameworks that show progression from entry-level roles to senior conservation posts
• Stronger outreach to secondary-school students, where awareness of heritage careers remains low compared with construction or engineering

What does the gap mean for individual workers?

For tradespeople and early-career professionals, the data points to a candidate-friendly market. When 80% of employers in a sector flag a skills shortage, wage pressure tends to follow, particularly in technically demanding conservation disciplines. Stonemasons, lime-mortar specialists, and structural conservators with documented qualifications can expect strong demand from both public bodies and private contractors.

For job seekers considering a career switch, the heritage sector offers an alternative entry point for construction and craft skills that are transferable across building, infrastructure, and conservation projects. The Scottish Construction Now readership, which overlaps heavily with the heritage supply chain, sits at the front line of that pipeline.

Why is the gap so wide?

Heritage employers have struggled for years with an ageing workforce and limited new-entrant intake. Apprenticeship numbers in traditional construction crafts have not recovered to pre-2008 levels across the UK, and heritage-specific training has historically been concentrated in a small number of colleges. HES's warning suggests those structural issues have now compounded into a sector-wide recruitment problem.

What happens next?

The next test is whether the 80% figure translates into funded training places, apprenticeship commissions, and direct recruitment campaigns — or whether it remains an advocacy statistic. Heritage bodies in other parts of the UK have used similar evidence to secure multi-year skills investment; whether HES secures comparable commitments will determine whether the workforce grows or the gap widens further over the next intake cycle.