THE race is on to get Plymouth’s residents skilled up for the jobs bonanza that is coming its way, including supporting 40,000 people who are “economically inactive” to get back to work.

The total number of jobs in the city is forecast to grow by 25,000 over the next ten years mainly due to the Government’s £4.4 billion investment in the naval base at Devonport and the dockyard, but Plymouth does not currently have sufficient skilled labour to meet the demands of this investment.

Poor educational and health outcomes, skilled labour retention and a lack of high-quality housing has all contributed to this, a meeting of the council’s natural infrastructure and growth scrutiny panel heard on Wednesday.

But the city council, which is part of a growth alliance recently renamed Team Plymouth, is on a mission to change that.

With 10,000 new homes in the pipeline, city centre regeneration underway and Plymouth’s new status as one of five key national defence growth areas in the UK, council leader Tudor Evans (Lab, Ham) said it was about to go on an “epic adventure” the likes of which it had not seen since the post war reconstruction of the city.

He told the meeting that every community in Plymouth would “feel the benefit of what we are about to do” and it would be councillors’ jobs to make sure that happened.

And he would be using “every trick in the book” to make sure the city got what it needed from the government.

But the challenge was laid out this week with new efforts to get people into work and with the right skills, engineering and construction being two of the industries.

Of the 7,500 people who will be needed at Babcock’s Devonport dockyard over the next ten years, 2,000 construction workers will be sought to support the infrastructure programme.

Plymouth has a higher than average number of people – approximately 40,000 – who are economically inactive, which means they are of working age but not in employment and are not looking for work, or are unable to start work for various reasons including family commitments or illness.

Long-term sickness is a specific issue in Plymouth – 8.3 per cent of the working-age population compared to 5.3% for England. Economic inactivity is also a specific issue for the over 50s.

Scrutiny panel members were told that the government’s multi million Connect to Work programme in Devon had “real potential to disrupt the intergenerational inactivity we see in parts of Plymouth”.

It would work alongside the Skills Launchpad at Cobourg House which was connecting local businesses and people with opportunities for skills, training, education, careers and jobs and On Course South West which also supports education for adults and young people.

The number of people with higher level qualifications in Plymouth is 14 per cent below the national average and more people in the city have no qualifications compared to the national figure.

But people taking up apprenticeships is six per cent higher in Plymouth than the national average of 10 per cent.

More than half of Plymouth’s 16-18 year olds go to City College which aims to be one of five new defence tech colleges in the UK.

Its new campus focusing on marine and green skills is expected to open in the soon to be revamped Civic Centre in 2029 delivering “cutting edge” facilities and 60 new courses in engineering, marine autonomy, construction, advanced manufacturing, IT and cyber security amongst others.

Service director for economic development David Draffan said it was a huge time of change for Plymouth and the challenge should not be underestimated: “We are taking the ambition from a city trying to figure it out by ourselves to suddenly being able to do it on the national stage.

“How we articulate the opportunity to our populace has been a major challenge for us over the years. We are being given this unique opportunity so we have to think differently and step up.”