The centre aims to deliver the next generation of skilled house builders in the East of England and close the national skills gap and housing shortage.

The NHBC Training Hub can train 80 apprentices all year round, enabling them to qualify in as little as 14 months.

The facility, equipped with classrooms, welfare, and catering facilities, provides apprentices with a realistic outdoor working environment and initially focuses on bricklaying.

At the opening, HRH The Princess Royal met with bricklaying apprentices who demonstrated the various stages needed to build a house and emphasised the need to encourage more people into house building, with bricklaying being an excellent pathway into a rewarding and well-paid career.

Tawona Mativi, 29, from Cambridge and bricklaying apprentice with GSQ Brickwork at the NHBC Cambridge Training Hub, said: “The mix of practical and theoretical learning at the NHBC Training Hub, combined with regularly applying my training on-site, is excellent.”

Toby Egan, 23, bricklaying apprentice with Taylor Wimpey at the NHBC Cambridge Training Hub, said: “All the tools and equipment are what you use on-site, and I’m learning to build to NHBC’s standards, which is brilliant as they are the best when it comes to house building.”

Since becoming a registered apprenticeship provider in 2020, around 450 people have taken up NHBC’s bricklaying and construction site supervisor programmes.

The courses have been designed with input from across the industry to ensure they meet the needs of employers and employees alike.

Tegan Pryor, 22, from Shefford, Bedfordshire, is working to gain her Level 2 bricklaying apprenticeship at the NHBC Training Hub. She enjoys being outside and earning whilst learning.