UK Construction in 2015: Sector by Sector

UK construction can brag some exciting projects in the current market, such as Crossrail, HS2, the Northern Line Extension, the plans for new residential towers in London, and the renewal of a variety of frameworks such as the beginning of AMP 6 that consists of various new build treatment plants and is of course the massive Thames Tideway Tunnel project. Here is a brief round up of some of the most exciting construction projects and frameworks within civil engineering/infrastructure and within building construction.

Rail
HS2 has issued tenders now for the first phase of the project, which consist of £1.4bn worth of work for consultants and contractors. A vast amount of this is enabling works, with companies to bid for a healthy sum to be the delivery partner on the project. The enabling works will last for 4 years and will consist of 3 phases, split equally into £300m each, split between southern, mid-section, and northern parts of the project. Phase 1 is predicted to last around a decade, with the client tendering for a single engineering delivery partner to oversee this. The client has also issued a tender for the consultancy work on phase 2 of the project, which will connect Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds, valued at between £75m and £150m. This second phase is predicted to last around 7 years. HS2 is going to provide a lot of jobs in the rail sector of construction over a long period of time, and will be the most prestigious rail project in the UK once the ongoing Crossrail project finishes within the next few years (due to open 2019).

Quantity Surveyors and Planners are still required for a number of the Crossrail station projects should you be interested in working on them (get in touch!), and also there is the exciting Northern Line extension, a £1bn funding to extend the Northern line to Battersea. This will include the building of a number of stations that will be due to open by 2020.

Water
AMP 6 is getting underway for the next 5 year stage of the water treatment programme in the UK. Water frameworks in the UK are beginning to kick off with contractors and consultancies being chosen to do the works in different regions. There are some exciting above ground treatment plants being constructed in the water sector including a major project in East London, which will be a treatment plant for the Thames “Super Sewer”.

Build
The number of towers predicted for London has also risen 10% up to 264, from last year’s predicted number – a sign of rocketing construction confidence in the UK. Population in the capital is ever increasing so the number of residential builds is under pressure to try and keep pace. Building affordable homes for London residents will also require a lot of investment from the public sector to increase accommodation stock in this area. The education sector is also still booming in the UK with the Conservatives supporting the need to improve and expand provision of school facilities

Roads
A huge roads investment has been decided upon within the last few months - a whopping £15bn across England. This breakdown into regional areas, including London and South East (£1.4bn), South West (£2bn), Midlands (£1.4bn), East of England (£1.5bn), North East & Yorkshire (£2.3bn), North West (£800m). This was initially announced in 2013, and will include over a thousand new miles of extra lanes to existing roads, and also many road improvement schemes. The £15bn is said to take place over the next 5 years. In addition to this, England and Scotland are to have separate road management bodies, with the Highways Agency now broken up into separate administration parts.

Summary – A Booming UK Construction Industry
Clearly the UK construction industry is now booming again across almost every sector.  Although there are ‘problem jobs’ still around that were awarded during the recession on insufficient margins that are causing a real headache for some contractors, in general times are good again.  Both employers, employees and job seekers can be optimistic about the outlook for the future.  The consequence of this – rising salaries, staff churn and headaches recruiting quality people at a reasonable market rate.  This is what Maxim Recruitment does best.  Please get in touch if we can be of assistance.

Adam Cadwaladr
Maxim Recruitment
London/South East & Midlands Region