CONSTRUCTION skills are going to be at a premium over the next 10 years.

So what better time for young people – and perhaps older ones looking for a career change – to go into the building industry?

And don’t forget that where supply and demand are out of kilter, with demand far outstripping supply, bulging wage packets follow.

Just look at plumbers who are now in greater demand than ever and can command huge prices just for changing a washer. A surge of applications followed the news that some plumbers were earning more than £70,000 a year.

Kent is gearing up for what will probably be the biggest surge of building activity since the end of the Second World War.

Tens of thousands of homes, scores of schools, a few new hospitals, leisure centres, shops and, of course, commercial developments are destined for Kent Thames Gateway and Ashford.

We shall need all the construction skills we can find. Sadly, not enough will be home-grown unless the situation changes radically.

We are currently producing less than a third of the bricklayers, surveyors, carpenters and other trades that we need. There are not enough people with the aptitude to take on management roles in the building industry.

Construction firms need to play a role of course. The best still hire apprentices. But smaller employers resent the cost, a decision that will almost certainly prove to be a false economy.

If plans to increase the numbers fail to win enough hearts and minds, the industry will be forced to look abroad.

Many workers from Eastern Europe and elsewhere already work in the county. But that labour source could run dry, especially if there is the anticipated construction boom in their own countries.

The Olympic Games bring a new dimension to the construction skills dilemma. There will be no escaping the June 2012 deadline and Games projects will fuel demand for labour from wherever it comes, including Kent.

If the county’s construction talent can earn more at Stratford East than north-west Kent’s Eastern Quarry, then that’s where it will go.

So the message to young people in the county has to be – look at the construction industry as a serious career option. And that means girls too.

The race starter has fired his gun. Now go for construction gold!