21st Century Construction

For the last three years, DragonHeart Homes, a CIOB company in Peterborough that makes modular units for public-sector housing, has employed prisoners from HMP North Sea Camp, a Category-D open men’s prison outside Boston in Lincolnshire. So far, 41 inmates have come to work at DragonHeart. They get training and NVQs in construction skills, with CSCS cards. It sets them up with cash in the bank an...

The end of April saw two major announcements regarding humanoid robots, a technology the construction sector hopes can work with the human workforce to improve productivity. Firstly, Tilbury Douglas announced onsite trials of its own humanoid robot, Douglas, a walking (not yet talking) robot that aims to spot defects and safety issues alongside site managers. Here, in the latest episode of the 21c...

The government’s £15bn Warm Homes Plan, launched in January, is aimed at upgrading the nation’s homes and cutting energy bills. By 2030, it is expected to upgrade five million homes as part of a comprehensive retrofit programme, focusing on targeted interventions through insulation, solar panels and heat pumps. For contractors and housing providers, the scale of the challenge ahead should not be u...

To mark Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, the latest episode of the 21CC podcast sets out why men across the industry must prioritise their health. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer affecting men in the UK – a disease that touches thousands of families every year. Sadly, one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime. This risk increases with age, and it is pa...

Every construction client brings a different set of priorities to a project, but all share the same goal: getting the best value from their supply chain. In this episode, we hear from the people commissioning construction projects to uncover how stronger supply chain collaboration can deliver better outcomes. From the key benchmarks that matter most and how performance is measured, to the innovati...

In our final episode of the year, we take stock of the biggest issues that are defining construction and look ahead to what will be on the industry’s agenda in 2026. From reforms of the skills system and strengthened safety oversight, to the government’s response to its late payments consultation, we unpack the developments that matter most to professionals across construction. Technology is anoth...

This episode dives into one of construction’s biggest and most stubborn challenges: avoidable error. Ten years on from its launch, the Get It Right Initiative (GIRI) has made real strides in raising awareness across the industry of the £21 billion lost to error every year. Executive director Cliff Smith joins us to discuss what’s changed and what still needs to happen to reduce error and improve p...

Construction is facing a mental health emergency, with alarming suicide rates reflecting the persistent stigma that prevents many people from speaking out. The conversation around mental health has undoubtedly improved in recent years, but with male suicide rates in construction among the highest of any UK sector, there is still more work to be done. To mark World Mental Health Day, our guests – B...

Recent changes to the UK immigration system are likely to have a major impact on the construction industry, which relies on overseas workers. But with construction employers already facing a chronic skills shortage, will the changes help or hinder the development of the workforce? UK immigration solicitor Kirsty Moore, from global law firm Fragomen, joins the latest episode of the 21CC podcast to...

The UK government recently committed to a £14.2bn investment to build the Sizewell C nuclear power station, ending years of delay and uncertainty over the project. Now the project has been given the green light, how should the construction industry prepare for Sizewell C and a potential pipeline of future nuclear builds? Nuclear expert Michael Fitzpatrick, who is a professor at Coventry University...

Morris & Spottiswood boss Jon Dunwell joins the 21CC podcast to discuss the workforce issues impacting the contractor and the wider fit-out sector in the aftermath of ISG’s collapse. While many firms in the supply chain were left reeling after ISG went into administration last September, Morris & Spottiswood saw an opportunity to offer a lifeline to the people and projects operating in its...

The UK’s ambitious target to reach net zero by 2050 requires significant change across the construction industry. The retrofit of historic building stock will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in helping to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon. But against the backdrop of a growing skills shortage, will challenges across the construction workforce hinder the much-needed retrofit revolution? I...

The built environment can have a significant impact on mental health and wellbeing, for better or worse. Factors such as quality of housing and infrastructure, as well as access to green spaces and design choices, can influence both physical and psychological health. So, how can construction professionals create buildings with positive psychological effects that help people live happier and health...

Artificial intelligence (AI) can speed up many processes in construction, from design and scheduling to contract and risk management, but it won’t lead to any across-the-board productivity gains as long as the industry’s fragmented business model remains the default. “Reformation, not transformation” was a consensus view in our reality-check panel discussion with four people on the front line of i...

This month, we’re checking in to see how the industry’s doing on race equality. The stats vary, but most counts show that people of colour are still vastly under-represented in the industry, compared to the overall population mix. The disparity is even starker in the UK’s many cities. For a sector struggling to fill vacancies, this seems like a big missed opportunity. For a candid assessment, we a...

Your colleagues are likely to affect your happiness at work more than salary and benefits, the first Construction Happiness Barometer survey reveals. Nearly 300 construction professionals completed the survey during the last two weeks of November. It probed happiness levels in construction, the causes of happiness or unhappiness, and attitudes about the topic. The people you work with emerged as t...

We know that the linear way we build now – where materials make a one-way trip from the earth to landfill – is dangerously unsustainable. It assumes too many infinites: Infinite raw materials; infinite space for waste; and infinite capacity of the biosphere to absorb the greenhouse gases that the one-way trip produces. But what can we do? This month we explore the possibility of a so-called “circu...

By now, many people in construction are used to thinking about cutting CO2 emissions. But the industry’s impact on nature – the planet’s and our life-support system – has been largely overlooked. That is until this year when, in February, it became mandatory for developers in England to deliver a “biodiversity net gain”, or BNG, of 10% on sites that are half a hectare or more in size. In this epis...

The Labour Party pledged in its manifesto to build 1.5m new homes over the next Parliament if it got into power. But does the UK have the necessary skills, capacity and infrastructure to achieve this target? In September's episode of the 21CC podcast, three experts gather to answer this question and identify the challenges standing in the way of its delivery. The speakers are: Tim Balcon , CEO of...

In the latest episode of the 21CC podcast, three leaders of successful megaprojects delve into the nitty gritty of what it takes to lead them. On the panel are: • Jake Mumm , head of Bechtel’s global Public Infrastructure division, whose projects include the Keeyask hydropower project in northern Canada, and the new metro system for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; • Davendra Dabasia , CEO of Mace Consult, w...

Veteran plant journalist Peter Haddock is with us this month to help make sense of the rapidly changing landscape of construction machinery and sustainability. Should we go all in on electrification? Is hydrogen coming on stream anytime soon? What’s the current state of enabling technology? Peter shares examples of how businesses including Flannery Plant Hire , L Lynch Plant Hire & Haulage , P...

Following World Environment Day 2024, we dig into a complex and difficult question. Construction is the single biggest source of greenhouse gases. It produces vast amounts of waste. The resource extraction needed to feed its demands puts enormous pressure on habitats and biodiversity. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of buildings stand empty, even as we prepare to build hundreds of thousands more....

Building Saudi’s Red Sea high-end tourist giga-project [01:04 ] From bare sand to a collection of 50 separate resorts with its own international airport on Saudi Arabia’s remote west coast, The Red Sea giga-project is a high-end tourism scheme like no other. We speak to Andrew Tyson, head of construction at Red Sea Global, who’s in charge of bringing it all together. Canada: Land of opportunity [1...

Robotic micro-factories for housebuilding? [00:25] High-tech companies down through the years have often seen construction as a tantalising frontier, ripe for disruption by new ways of putting things together. Now, the Swiss multinational manufacturer ABB has entered the fray, with an idea for building affordable housing using robots at site-based micro-factories. They’ve teamed up with...

Happy Birthday, CIOB! Three young professionals look ahead [01:00] To celebrate the 190 th anniversary of the founding of the Chartered Institute of Building, we speak to three young CIOB people from around the world – members of the Tomorrow’s Leaders network – about the one thing they’d like to change about the industry and how the CIOB can help with that. This stimulating exchange features: • T...