The construction industry – open to all!
Paul Gandy, who is Chief Executive Officer at Tilbury Douglas, Vice President of the CIOB and serving on the Board of Build UK as a Contractor Director, shares his thoughts on the key areas the industry should be focusing on during the year ahead.
As we enter a new year, it is a great time to take stock and think about the key priorities the construction industry needs to focus on over the next 12 months and beyond.
As someone who has been fortunate enough to spend more than four decades within the industry, I can confidently say it is a great place for self-development. Unfortunately, this is not as widely known outside of the sector as it needs to be. As ever, the industry is facing skills shortages and one of our top priorities collaboratively needs to be working even harder to attract new talent – across all ages and backgrounds.
Opportunities for all
As people who work in construction, we know the wide variety of opportunities it offers and the wide range of roles – it is not all muddy boots and hard hats! This means roles focusing on everything from being onsite to design, finance, commercial management, planning, proposals, bidding, digital, design, social value, managing and mitigating environmental risk, brand development and beyond.
Making a long-term impact
The built environment is critical to almost everything we do and touch within our society – whether that’s improved schools and hospitals, reducing our carbon footprint, enabling better places to work and live, improving travel experiences or supplying clean water – none of it happens without us all doing what we do. There are not many other industries that offer careers that make tangible, long-lasting impacts to the world around us in that way that we do.
With the use of technology becoming more common place, this should be appealing to the next generation who really value innovation.
Social value matters
The direct and indirect consequences of what we do and how we do it are increasingly important. Adding social value to communities, reducing carbon and protecting the environment – these things have moved to the top of the agenda and being in the construction industry allows you to move the dial.
This is also very important to the next generation and something we should be encouraging new talent to embrace to lead this into the future.
Embracing talent
Whilst we have lots to do to be as inclusive as possible as a sector, and to enable diversity of workforce to be maintained over the life of a career, the construction industry has actually always welcomed people from all backgrounds and from all educational entry points. The saying ‘from the tools to the top’ has always been applied in construction, and it still does.
Each year, we participate in key events to promote this. This includes Open Doors, delivered by Build UK, in which we, along with other contractors and businesses throughout the supply chain, invite students and other interested parties behind the hoardings of our sites from 18 – 23 March to showcase the range of careers available in construction.
We all need to do more of this and be ambassadors for our fantastic industry. Let’s get the message out there personally, as businesses and as an industry across all levels. If we all do this, we should start to see a real difference in terms of new talent coming into construction.
Additional industry priorities
2024 may be a year of significant change for the government, with a general election looming. For construction, no matter what takes place, it is critical that the visibility of the public sector medium-term building pipeline is maintained – any unexpected standstills would cause a significant negative impact.
We also implore the government to continue to support R&D tax initiatives to drive innovation. Without the support of tax initiatives, the sector simply can’t invest in key areas to ensure it is a global leader driving growth and innovations in areas such as training, digital, competence, productivity and decarbonisation technology.
We cannot talk about the year ahead without a focus on the Building Safety Act – which is one of the biggest changes to the industry for many decades! There is no doubt that for us all a lot of time, training and investment will be put into place over the coming months to ensure we can drive through the changes required to deliver digital twins and the golden thread, and to ensure competency and accountability.
There is no question that the construction industry has transformed in so many positive ways since I joined. The focus we have now on social value, technology, accountability and ensuring we leave lasting positive impacts is incredible – and I am sure this rate of change and innovation will only increase. So, let’s all keep promoting construction and encouraging new talent to join us on our exciting journey!