The Building Podcast with Mark Wakeford

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome There are many theories on how to get the best from a team to deliver a project.  Most of these start with a focus on forming the right team.  What happens on a construction project when the wrong company is appointed and the client is only really interested in his programme and budget?    The pressure on everyone gets really intense and mistakes can start to be made...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome FE Colleges and other vocational training establishments are the gatekeepers for the construction industry.  They determine the numbers, calibre and quality of new entrants to the sector.  They are exposed on one side to the changing nature of students, many of whom have had to cope with the consequences of covid, and on the other side with employers who are also fac...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome “The construction industry is a people industry.”  It needs people to build projects for people and without these people there would not be any industry.  However, these people need to be competent, capable and available in numbers to support 8% of the UK’s Gross Domestic Product.  Over sixty years ago, Government created the Construction Industry Training Board (CIT...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Many of the issues that we face in our construction industry have been, or are, experienced in other sectors and we can often find answers by learning from others.  Sally-Anne Hayward is an award-winning comedian and author, who has been working in what was a traditional male industry since the 1990s.  Sally-Anne talks to Mark about her experiences and challenges of...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome The retro-fit market is a huge opportunity for the construction sector.  There are some 26M homes to be retro fitted before 2050, and 15M to be retro-fitted before the end of the decade.  This is an opportunity for our industry to support our communities and through the provision of acceptable housing, both in terms of living conditions and in its carbon footprint. ...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome The Building Safety Act continues to impact our construction sector as companies and clients further understand their roles in securing the safety of their buildings and the competence of their organisations, their staff and their supply chains.  James Butcher, Director for Strategy and Operations at the National Federation of Builders has been explaining the consequ...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome The construction sector is the largest industrial sector within the UK, representing up to 8% of Gross Domestic Product.  It directly employs over 2M people, with many more in allied and related service and manufacturing companies.  Many of these businesses are represented by trade federations, that exist to support and promote their members.  The National Federation...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Construction is a people industry, directly employing over 2M people, with many more in allied and servicing sectors.  Changes in recent employment legislation, changes in employment practices and winds of change in society at large mean that employers must prepare for a changing employment environment.  Indeed, as technology becomes ever more available, those who em...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome The Building Safety Act and associated statutory legislation demands that only competent people and competent organisations are involved in the construction and maintenance of buildings and infrastructure.  This is as a direct consequence of the failure of Grenfell Tower where 72 people lost their lives through a catalogue of construction industry failures.  This req...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Further Education Colleges are now scored by OFSTED against their employer engagement.  This is designed to encourage them to bridge the gap between education and employment that their students must negotiate.  It also allows employers to inform and support courses and students in which they have a vested interest.  Sean Houlston, Head of Membership and Digital Servi...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome We live in the digital age and every aspect of our businesses relies on IT to enable, do or determine its course of actions.  This reliance on IT has crept up on our industry and our reliance has happened without the traditional overview of risk that we are now running.  Capable and sophisticated IT systems can bring huge advantages to a project or company, yet, unma...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Construction is a professional business requiring skilled and competent people to design and deliver its product.  These skills are created through experience and training.  Training is provided by a range of organisations that are responsible for the quality and range of courses.  Jason Howe is the Technical Advisor for Construction, Green Skills and the Built Envir...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Construction companies are paid to deliver projects in tough conditions where significant risks exist.  These conditions and risks inform the culture that exists within our businesses and the wider industry.  One of the greater challenges that we face is raising productivity within the sector, to enable us to deliver more for less and to pay our workers more.  Having...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Our construction industry is facing many challenges in meeting its obligation to deliver economic, sustainable projects.  Many of these challenges require an evolution of our culture that changes our priorities.  Other challenges require a wholesale re-think of how we recruit, train and manage our human resource if we are to tackle the sustainability issues head on....

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome The Further Education Sector is the mainstay of vocational education within England, training students from 16 years old and providing the basis for long and successful careers within construction and other vocations.  It is often misunderstood, but it is a sector that is asking for active employer engagement to inform the direction and content of training courses an...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome The Building Safety Act is the most significant piece of construction legislation for a generation.  Its reach is far and broad across our sector, driven as it was by the terrible disaster of Grenfell.   This disaster highlighted multiple structural failures across our sector that from a different perspective should never have been allowed to happen. Implementing the...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Have you ever wondered how an HSE prosecution works, or how it feels to be caught up in one?  Would you know how to protect your position, when there is plenty happening that you are unfamiliar with and under the pressure of an HSE investigation?  Hugely respected barrister, Ian Bridge, takes us though the processes that the courts and HSE follow and explains some of...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Dr. Caroline Gumble has been the CEO of the Chartered Institute of Building for nearly six years.  She has represented the institute both overseas and in the UK, giving her a great perspective on our relative strengths and weaknesses.  In this podcast she outlines the areas that she has championed during her tenure and calls for more accountability and professionalis...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Construction is a complex world, where every project is a prototype and the supply chain booked to deliver it is both long and often untested.  Any wonder then that the contracts that specify our work, anywhere within the supply chain are both long and relatively complex.  These contracts are the preserve of lawyers who can help us set up a project, interpret the lan...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome The demand from construction businesses for new people to join the sector in the medium to long term is significant.  CITB advise that hundreds of thousands will be needed to service the UK’s largest industry, particularly with the transition to net-zero.  The vast majority of these recruits will be direct entry from our education system.  Polly Harrow is the Student...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Rudi Klein trained as a barrister before joining the industry as an advocate and militant to promote fairness and best practice.  His forty years in the sector has allowed him to represent specialist contractors, fighting for fair payment, the security, or abolition of retentions and fairness in contracts amongst many other initiatives.  He is a doyen of the industry...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome The construction industry employs over 2M people in the UK.  It needs to recruit upwards of 100,000 people every year to replace leavers and fill new roles to meet the demands that are being placed upon the sector.  Many of these recruits will start their careers within construction and those of us within the sector have a duty to encourage new starters to join and t...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Construction is the UK’s largest single industry and one that is endlessly changing and variable.  There are generally plenty of issues to keep us busy and focused on the known unknowns.  However, it is worthwhile taking a step back every so often to see us how others see us, to determine whether we might operate in a different way, with different priorities.  Mark t...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome Construction is the only industrial sector that describes its main companies as “contractors”, highlighting the importance of the contract between two parties.  This designation forgoes the value that our industry creates, focusing on the small print as our raison d’être.  Couple this with a highly fragmented industry with low margin and we perhaps should not be surp...

Send a Text - Feedback Welcome The construction industry is the largest separate sector in the UK, generating £139Bn of value in 2023, delivered by 365,000 VAT registered businesses, employing over 1.4M people and supported by over 750,000 self-employed staff.  These numbers often mask the messages coming from the industry on what we have to do to stay ahead, as leaders focus on their experience a...