Across the world, people from all continents are witnessing the destructive effects of climate change – droughts, floods, wildfires, extended heatwaves. storms and crop failures.
When you consider this, alongside the rocketing increases in energy prices that’s causing many households and businesses to struggle with their bills, it’s clear that reducing the amount of energy we all use is now urgent – for both our planet and our purses.
One solution that we’re hearing mentioned more frequently within the construction world is the ‘Fabric First’ approach – changes that can be made when considering the design, construction and ‘fabric’ of a building to ensure it becomes energy efficient. In this week’s blog, we’ll tell you more.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been sharing what we know about some of the careers people can choose in construction. So far, we’ve looked at what it means to take up physical, on-site jobs like bricklaying and roofing but, while these are common and important roles, the sector offers a much broader range of possibilities than this.
In fact, construction is one of the biggest industries in the world and so there are literally hundreds of career pathways to choose from. For instance, there are Architects, CAD technicians, Quantity Surveyors, Site Engineers, Contracts Managers, Estimators, Construction Managers, BIM Coordinators, Commercial Managers, Health and Safety professionals, Environmental Consultants and a whole host of other back-office roles like accountancy, office management and digital marketing.
In this third and final part of our Careers in Construction series, we’re going to give a brief overview of five of these roles.
In its ‘State of the Trade’ survey, published last October, the Federation of Master Builders found that 60% of small-to-medium sized construction companies had pressed the pause button on jobs due to a lack of skilled tradespeople. 12% had cancelled work due to a lack of skilled tradespeople and 45% were particularly struggling to hire bricklayers.
A key problem is that the industry has an ageing workforce and young Brits are shying away from entering traditional trades. Some suggest that young people ‘leave’ our industry as young as 12 years old! Sounds weird but think about it. Pre-schoolers and primary schoolkids love the idea of building things (influenced perhaps by ‘Bob the Builder’ and games like Minecraft). But, something changes as they reach their teenage years and suddenly construction is seen as ‘dirty work’ or something for ‘those who don’t go to college’.
So, in today’s blog, we’re going to try to dispel some of those negative ideas and showcase what it really means to be a bricklayer.
Once upon a time (before we headed into today’s digital world), the main distraction most of us had during a working day was a conversation about the best of last night’s television over tea break!
But now, with notifications informing us of the arrival of the latest email, text, WhatsApp or social media post/ story, our working days can sometimes feel like one long interruption, resulting in little progress on the ‘to do’ list.
There are, however, methods which can be used to get around this problem so, today, we’re going to look at an approach called ‘deep work’. Read on to find out how you can kill those distractions and get more done.
Back in the 19th Century, the Scottish writer and philosopher, Thomas Carlyle wrote these words of wisdom: “Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.”
It’s a quote that probably rings true with many a construction worker as where we would be without all the tools and equipment that help bring a construction project to life. But, whilst these important items are essential for our industry to work properly, they also raise a question: should we buy or hire?
Although it makes good sense to go down the buying route for some tools (particularly the small hand-held items that get used every day), this is not always the right decision. In this week’s blog, we’re exploring three reasons why, in some cases, hiring is a better option than buying outright.
Across the world, it’s estimated that around 1.5 billion vehicle tyres are discarded every year. Most of us have probably never really thought about this or what might be happening to such a mountain of tyres once they’ve been cast off. While some may get strung up to a tree to make a swing, such repurposing is really an exception to the rule. In fact, less than one percent of old vehicle tyres are ever reused, meaning huge quantities wind up in stockpiles and landfill.
Now, researchers from the University of South Australia (UniSA) have come up with something that could not only help to resolve the landfill problem but also provide an economically viable and sustainable alternative to concrete for the construction industry. Read this week’s blog for more about this exciting development.
The term ‘quality’ can mean different things to different people – the secret to achieving high standards; a measure that we use to evaluate ourselves and others; or a complex set of criteria, controls and procedures that our professional work must adhere to.
For a simpler definition, quality is really all about what separates the good from the bad. For construction projects and businesses this couldn’t be more important, so today we’re going to dive into why that is exactly as well as offer a few tips for how to manage and improve quality.
(Mental Health Awareness Week 2022)
After two years of the pandemic, where there has been much less direct contact with friends, family, colleagues or even with essential healthcare professionals, many people are feeling a greater sense of loneliness, isolation and disconnection from our altered society.
Responding to this, the Mental Health Foundation have chosen ‘loneliness’ as the theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week which starts today. With construction workers being exposed to many of the same stress points in life as everyone else, we’re using this week’s blog to talk about loneliness in detail and provide a few tips as to what can be done to manage or overcome this problem.
If you’re thinking of getting into property development, making significant structural alterations to your home or embarking on a ‘build your own home’ project, you’ll need to obtain planning permission before setting a single brick in place.
Whilst some projects may sail through to that sought-after ‘planning approved’ status, others will face a long, drawn-out and complicated process. This can be especially true with large-scale projects like new residential or commercial unit developments but even an extension to your house can sometimes take longer than you may think.
In this week’ blog, we’ve got a short guide to the steps involved in gaining planning permission and a few tips to follow along the way.
With soaring energy prices, interest rate rises, some huge hikes in the cost of materials and the continuation of labour shortages, many construction industry businesses could be in for some turbulent times this year.
In many cases, the cost pressures are made worse by the fact that contractors are both tied into existing work which was based on estimations set well before the current price rises and are also busy looking at how they can respond to invitations to tenders in ways that make the jobs viable within the current circumstances. In today’s blog, we’re taking a look at what construction businesses (and those who work within them) can do to face this challenge.