The Historic Environment Forum (HEF) has issued its ‘Historic Environment Skills and Careers Action Plan for England’.
HE writes:
Developing out of the Heritage Sector Resilience Plan the cross-sector Historic Environment Skills Forum has been set up to discuss ongoing skills challenges, trial new approaches, and maintain an overview of the changing picture. Through collaboration the forum aims to build links between organisations and interested parties, enabling the better prioritisation of skills activities.
In September 2024 the Skills Forum published the first-ever Historic Environment Skills and Careers Action Plan for England. This document is the culmination of research and intelligence gathering across the sector that has taken place over the previous 18 months, coordinated through the Skills Forum.
HESCAPE outlines a range of Activities to be undertaken, to deliver against Priority Actions that will help to meet longer-term Strategic Objectives for skills and career development in the historic environment.
Priority Activities identified for the current Action Plan period focus on:
- improving/developing training for retrofit to better represent heritage
- identifying and obtaining resources for career entry opportunities
- piloting a formal shared apprenticeship programme for heritage; and
- better embedding of heritage into mainstream education courses.
HESCAPE also recognizes a number of specific skills areas that the sector should particularly focus on creating opportunities for, as they face the largest or most immediate challenges in terms of gaps and shortages. These are:
- skills for Retrofit (climate change adaptation)
- traditional plastering and carpentry/joinery skills
- post-excavation specialist skills (Archaeology)
- industrial heritage conservation skills
- skills to manage change to the Historic Environment (Heritage in Planning)
As well as providing a structured and prioritised approach to tackling skills issues; HESCAPE also lays out a delivery framework, centred on establishing a range of Working Groups across the Skills Forum to lead on delivering the various activities and report to the overall Skills Forum Steering Group.
See the report HERE
