The firm is concerned that many engineers and supervisors reaching management level today come with little or no first hand experience of quality workmanship.

To tackle this growing knowledge gap Costain is sending new managers from its business and supply chain on an innovative course devised by the National Construction College.

The two-year programme of short training courses gives graduate trainees, site managers and package managers a chance to brush up on a variety of trades.

Bill Hewlett, technical director at Costain, said this was already helping to improve technical knowledge and ensure managers are qualified to inspect work in progress correctly.

“Due to the changing nature of contracting there are less people coming up through the trades,” he said.

“We know that in time this may result in a loss of integral knowledge flowing through to supervisory and management staff.

“Great managers with a thorough skills background have been a hallmark of the Costain offering. We want to retain this so we are acting now to keep ahead.”

He added: “Since the introduction of the training we are already seeing measurable effect from its implementation giving us greater productivity”

Neil England, commercial manager at the NCC, added: “Costain has been at the forefront of identifying the quality issues that we face in the construction industry and, most significantly, is doing something about it.

“This bespoke service is one which we want to develop with other organisations who wish to ‘train out’ costly gaps in knowledge.”