A number of issues arise from Nigeria’s lack of a regulated and effective system for evaluating the credentials and abilities of artisans in the building sector, including ineffective verification, subjective evaluation, restricted accessibility, a lack of standardisation, and security issues. The study aimed to assess severity of skill shortages in the Nigerian building construction artisans. The study adopts descriptive survey design and quantitative approach was used as study approach, survey strategy was adopted and data were collected through questionnaire survey. The study also adopts simple random sampling technique and SPSS software version 22 was used for data analysis tools. A descriptive analysis type using mean ranking technique and (percentage) were used for the analysis. The study revealed that practicing building construction artisans in Nigeria lack the requisite anger management skills at their workplaces, delay in building projects delivery in Nigeria. Also, practicing building construction artisans in Nigeria lack the requisite health, safety and house-keeping skills at their workplaces and lack of institutionalization of the NSQ leads to skill shortages for the industry were the major points of consideration when looking at the skill shortages for the building construction delivery in Nigeria. Provision of adequate competency-based trainers was rated the most important strategy, suggesting that qualified trainers are essential for effective skill development. Periodic capacity building for practicing artisans, regular training and development programs for existing artisans was considered crucial for maintaining and enhancing their skills. Also, enactment of enabling legislation for the national building code enforcement and a strong regulatory framework is seen as necessary to ensure industry standards and compliance.
Keywords: Artisans, Severity, building construction, effective system, skill shortages
