September 2017

BUILD / September 2017 51 Achieving growth and driving standards in a demanding market by investing in skills, experience and technology g “In the future, we anticipate greater levels of development to meet the shortages in housing, and to facilitate improvement to key infrastructure. However, we also anticipate a greater future emphasis on development of brownfield land, greater invest- ment in environmental protection and in renewable energy. There is a lot of uncertainty in the mar- ket at the moment and I think that in the short term, and perhaps extending to the medium term, we could see peaks and troughs in demand. However, this is a scenario that has not yet come to pass and if anything, demand is increasing. “One of the key challenges that the industry faces are skills short- ages. The industry has chronical- ly under invested, particularly in the last 10 years. We now face the crisis of an ageing workforce and a lack of new entrants to the industry. We are still a heavily male dominated sector and we need to reach out to the female population and ethnic minorities, another part of society that we are critically under represented. “We need to encourage young people from all backgrounds to choose engineering. “Finally, many commentators believe that the industry is on the verge of a revolution in terms of how its services are delivered, which will be IT driven. We need to ensure that we remain at the forefront of this revolution.