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Interview innovative, sustainable solutions to complex structural challenges while continuing to grow as a business.
2. Looking ahead to 2026, what do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges for the UK construction sector, particularly in the context of the autumn budget? The autumn budget sets out significant ambition across regeneration, housing, skills, and private sector investment, but there is a growing sense across the industry that ambition continues to outpace delivery. Targets are repeatedly announced, yet the mechanisms required to achieve them remain largely unchanged.
Planning reform has been positioned as a priority for successive governments, but the system remains slow, overly discretionary, and inconsistent. Even schemes that are fully policy compliant can be delayed for years by prolonged determination periods, repeated consultation, and subjective decision making at local level. These delays add substantial cost, increase risk, and directly undermine viability, particularly for mid-scale and regional developments. As a result, projects stall, ambition is diluted, or investment is redirected elsewhere. There is widespread scepticism within the industry that the housing and regeneration targets set out in the budget are achievable under the current framework.
Meaningful reform requires more than rhetoric. It demands a clear shift away from discretionary planning toward faster, rulesbased routes to consent. Expanding permitted development style rights, introducing clearer national standards, and enabling automatic approval for compliant schemes would materially improve certainty and delivery speed. Without this, planning will continue to be the primary bottleneck, regardless of funding levels or political messaging.
Beyond planning, delivery capacity remains a serious constraint. Many local authorities are under resourced and struggle to progress schemes efficiently, even where funding exists. At the same time, the skills shortage across both design and construction continues to place pressure on programme, cost, and quality. While investment in skills and training is welcome, these initiatives are long term and do little to address the immediate challenges facing live projects.
Overall, the budget signals intent, but intent alone will not deliver outcomes. Without decisive and overdue action to simplify planning, improve delivery capacity, and address near term skills pressures, many of the opportunities it identifies are unlikely to be realised in practice.
3. The skills gap remains a pressing concern. How can the industry attract and retain the next generation of engineering and construction talent? Attracting the next generation requires a shift in how the industry presents itself. Young people want careers with purpose, clear progression, and a sense that their work matters. Construction and engineering need to be far more direct about the role they play in shaping communities, delivering housing, and addressing long-term societal challenges.
Retention is equally important. Better structured early careers, stronger mentoring, genuine investment in training, and clearer pathways from apprenticeship through to professional qualification all make a real difference. Improving site culture and working practices is also critical if people are to build long term careers in the industry.
One emerging factor is the impact of AI on the wider labour market. As automation begins to reduce the number of entry level officebased roles across many sectors, more young people will reassess what a secure and future proof career looks like. Construction offers skilled, practical work that is far less exposed to automation because it relies on physical delivery, judgement, and coordination. If the
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