The accredited training unit model always assumed you had a training department. That assumption is why most of the construction industry has never been able to use it.
On Aug. 25 the National Center for Construction Education and Research released CraftPro, a subscription-based, self-paced online craft training and testing platform aimed at contractors too small to run an in-house program. The pitch removes two specific line items: the onsite trainer, and the lost production from pulling workers off the jobsite to sit in a classroom.
What’s in it
Courses are mobile-friendly with instructional video in English and Spanish, interactive activities, self-review quizzes, and performance evaluations a contractor can use to measure actual field improvement rather than test scores. The initial release covers a complete electrical and pipefitting offering plus a range of concrete, carpentry and drywall courses, with more crafts in development.
The unlock is the proctoring. Course tests run remotely with AI-augmented proctoring, and completion earns NCCER employer credentials. Credentials without a testing center is the part that hasn’t existed before at this price point.
Where the growth actually has to come from
Nearly all net construction employment growth has to come from firms under 20 employees, and those are exactly the firms that could never staff an accredited training unit. A five-person mechanical contractor that wants one apprentice trained on pipefitting has had two options: send them to a union program, or teach them informally and hope. This is a third.
NCCER President and CEO Boyd Worsham framed it around who feels the shortage: “The workforce shortage is an industry-wide issue, but the real challenges are felt by individual contractors as they see fewer qualified candidates applying to open positions. They must be able to build better teams.”
For general contractors, it also shifts what “NCCER-credentialed” means on a subcontractor’s qualification package. A credential earned through a proctored remote course isn’t identical to one earned in a classroom under an instructor, and prequalification reviewers will need to decide whether they care.
Large projects remain the places where craft depth gets tested at scale. The John Glenn Columbus International Airport new terminal is a $2 billion, 1-million-sq-ft build running on a CMaR team that pairs a national contractor with a local one partly to keep a trained regional workforce in place after the job ends.
The return-on-training claims around reduced rework and turnover are NCCER’s framing, as is the line attributing jobsite injuries primarily to lack of training, which the release sources to NIOSH. One clarification worth making: an NCCER CraftPro mobile app has existed since 2024, so this is the platform’s commercial release rather than the first appearance of the name.