Variety of construction roles on offer must be publicised more effectively

The variety of construction roles on offer must be publicised more effectively by employers and trade bodies, according to One Way.

Following on from comments made by the house builder Redrow’s CEO, John Tutte, the construction and rail recruitment specialist outlined how not enough is currently being done to promote the wide array of potential roles on offer within the industry. Tutte outlined late last week that there is a lack of awareness around the potential positions available to jobseekers. One Way has backed these comments, suggesting that more should be done to promote this variety.

Managing Director of One Way, Paul Payne, comments:

“Anyone working in, or who has a knowledge of the construction industry will know that a role in the sector doesn’t just mean laying bricks or mixing cement. There are a huge range of positions that require a vast array of skills but currently, the industry doesn’t make enough noise about them. You would be stunned to hear the number of people we speak to who don’t realise that there are huge shortages of skilled surveyors or engineers, for example, or that these roles are even available.”

“Construction offers the potential for a highly varied career and the avenues that professionals can take can be exceptionally diverse, more so than almost any other industry. However, I think if you asked the average person on the street to name some roles in construction the first positions that they’d say would be things like brickies, labourers and perhaps project managers. The industry as a whole needs to work hard to change these perceptions and highly some of the lesser known, but still critically important, positions that are on offer. Areas like surveying, for example, are some of the most imperative in the entire sector, but currently we just don’t promote them to the rest of the world enough. A lot of work has gone into supporting apprenticeships in recent months and we need to find other ways to promote all potential construction job roles to youngsters to raise interest in working in the industry. We’re interested in speaking to schools, colleges and other education institutions to see how we can promote careers and hopefully more organisations will adopt a similar policy moving forward.”