This study was designed to determine the skill needs of technical college students for effective processing of timber for building construction in Rivers State. Three research questions and three null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. A survey research designed was used for the study. The population was 81 which include 66 timber processors and 15 building teachers in technical in the colleges. The instrument used for data collection was questionnaire which contains 27 skilled items. Reliability was determined using cronbach Alpa and the result yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.89. The null hypotheses were tested at .05 level of significance using t-test. The findings of the study showed that technical college students must acquire conversion skills such as ability to read out figures on measuring tapes, seasoning skill such as ability to remove back and preservative skills such as ability to handle chemical, if they must go into timber processing. Based on the findings the following recommendations were made, Technical college students should be trained on skills needed for effective timber processing. The government should motivate teachers teaching technical courses in technical college. This, in turn will help the teachers to impact the right knowledge in terms of practical courses. The students of Technical colleges especially building/wood work students should have a training programme to improve their competencies in timber processing. That will enable them to be self employed in their areas of specializations.

Keywords: Timber, processing, conversion, seasoning, skill, building construction.