Image of a construction site where houses are under development.

Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) home builders play a pivotal role in shaping the UK’s housing landscape, delivering homes that cater to diverse needs and local communities.

However, as highlighted in the 2024–25 SME State of Play report, SME builders are facing numerous challenges and barriers to delivery, alongside some emerging opportunities to contribute to the nation’s ambitious housing targets. Read on for a summary of this latest report.

Image of a man with a sack of money on his back, representing the idea of overspending.

The John Lewis advert has hit the screens, supermarket shelves are starting to fill up with Christmas goodies and probably somewhere there’s a radio station already adding Mariah Carey into their playlist.

While the festive season brings joy to many, there is a darker side which sees some people falling into debt as they join in with the ‘spend, spend, spend’ ethos that will be pushed at us over weeks ahead. Businesses are not immune to this either and can, in fact, stumble into overspending habits at any time of the year. With this in mind, our blog this week focuses on some simple ideas for avoiding overspending.

Schools and colleges have broken up and, aside from the unpredictable weather, this means lots of young people will now be nervously waiting for their exam results and preparing for the next stage of their life.

While some will know exactly what they want to do, others might still be considering the options. For anyone considering a career in construction but not knowing where to start, we’ve got three steps you could follow in this week’s blog.

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.

The world we live in is constantly changing and the construction industry is certainly no exception to this. While some of the changes construction faces are incredibly challenging (for instance, the materials and labour shortages that have been widely reported in recent years) others can be seen as game-changing opportunities to boost productivity, conquer new markets, improve sustainability and support the wellbeing of the workforce.

As we start another year, still in the grips of the global pandemic along with other serious planetary concerns, we’re taking a look at some of the predicted top trends for construction in 2022.

The UK, Welsh and Scottish governments have signed up to a legally-binding target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to Net Zero by 2050. But to keep this target on track, the Construction Industry Training Board estimates that around 350,000 new construction jobs will need to be created by 2028, particularly outlining the need for green building specialists to reduce carbon emissions. This looks set to present both significant challenges and huge opportunities for construction companies. Read this week’s blog to find out more.