Poor Industry Image

This final identified issue is, in many ways, a holistic one that both reflects and is a natural result of many of the previous nine symptoms. The construction industry is struggling with its public facing image which is influencing the career decisions of the next generation of potential workers. Public perception of poor job security, working conditions and health and safety prevail. Recent media coverage of blacklisting, CSCS card fraud and an endless raft of 'cowboy builder' media exposés also does not help here. There also seems to sometimes be a lack of conviction, belief and promotion by many participants in the industry, from unskilled and skilled tradesmen to professionals who should all be front line ambassadors to their friends, family and the public at large.

These problems are being further reinforced by a lack of early engagement in schools and embedded negative attitudes of teachers, careers advisors and also parents or siblings in many instances. The overall feeling of construction being a backward and insular industry also impacts diversity and inclusion relative to other industries. This unfortunately also goes beyond construction and into many aspects of the wider real estate sector.

This will not be addressed solely through current attempts to use modern social media to better connect. It is not the outreach medium that is the problem: it is the fundamental story that is being told that reflects poor health & safety, physicality, austere working environment, embedded prejudices and perhaps crucially job security. The industry needs to effectively reinvent and, to use a computing term, reimage itself.

The CITB's role, briefly discussed above, in representing the industry's image, through initiatives such as 'Go Construct' as well as administering the levy and enabling / delivering technical training requires very diverse skillsets which inherently creates conflict, lack of focus and 'initiative overload'. The structural funding base also limits scalability. Ultimately, the conclusion of this review is that CITB does not currently appear to speak for industry collectively and fundamentally this undermines confidence in its ability to execute its function of wider industry promotion and outreach to schools and colleges. Various companies and industry bodies are running their own initiatives divorced from CITB and the 'toolkits' provided. This is an indicator that more needs to be done and is in reality one of the greatest tests of collective responsibility the industry has.

Housebuilding and residential construction as a sub sector within construction appears to be suffering particularly from poor levels of attraction. Despite recent headlines of employment creation in house building, the reality is that this part of construction is seen as very labour intensive, prone to design changes that impair production, frequent project delivery failures and is generally considered as high risk sector by all levels of the supply chain. This is reinforced by a feeling in general construction circles that it is the sector most at risk of 'boom and bust' due to a strong alignment with the housing for sale market.

The industry's low level of self-esteem and poor image is further reinforced by the generally poor relations it has with its own clients. It is in many quarters not valued by commissioning clients who accept and often even plan for poor performance. It is often seen as a 'necessary evil' in the value creation chain. This is reinforced in the real estate market where land promoters and traders whose model is purely to secure planning consent related to speculative led land value uplift and see physical development of built assets as a risk that dilute returns not a value add process. That is a sad indictment of the industry's standing as part of the wider built environment planning, creation and operation cycle.