The Wow Show Construction Special FULL with Q&A

Welcome to the Wild Show! You see this? There's more to it than you think. If you go through all the layers, it's basically just mud underneath. And all these new buildings, and roads. I'm not getting on this thing. This bridge, pretty good, no? Just a few years ago, it didn't even exist. I don't know about you, but I take a lot of this stuff for granted. If you think about it, everything you see around you, your roads, homes, school, colleges, had to be designed, planned, and built. I mean, right from the first sketch, to this. So, what do you think that takes? Yeah, right. Some doing. A lot of skilled people doing a lot of interesting stuff. Like this. From a day in the office, via mistaken identities, to a look into the future. And there's way more coming up. What's in a building? More than you think. So, as you can see, a building is much more than just four walls and a roof. It can change the way we think about where we work and live. Starting a career in construction makes you part of all of this. I'm Jessica Lee, and I achieved the civil engineering apprenticeship at J. Murphy & Sons. I found the apprenticeship as, like, a stepping stone in a career, which I really wasn't supposed to start off. I wanted to go into marketing, but it stepped me off in the right direction as being an engineer. I didn't want to go to university. I didn't want to get in debt. So I thought the best route for me was to go through the apprenticeship route. Throughout the day, I'm either in the site office or on-site. I might be setting out foundations or piles, or one day I might do some track monitoring, and then I may spend, like, a whole day in the office just catching up with paperwork. So it varies each day. One of the biggest challenges was coming onto a site and working with a load of lads and trying to get them to take you seriously. People feel very intimidated by working around men. I just feel like more women should come into the industry with an open mind. It's shaped my future really well. I've been on some really good projects and I've met some really good people, and I've been nominated for awards. It's kind of made me the person I am today, and I feel like I want to go higher up the ladder. Offshore and renewable energy is going to be something that's central to our lives. There's loads of awesome tech being designed and constructed for it. Here, at the Port of Bly, different companies welcome some pretty epic projects, like working with offshore renewable wind power and laying cables under the ocean to connect the UK and Norway. I mean, how is that even possible? Giant subsea trenches, that's how. And they're all remote-controlled. Let's check it out. IHC design and build offshore pipeline equipment, which can range from the towers that take the pipeline and lay it on the seabed, and then the subsea vehicles, which can be used to plough trenches and bury the pipeline. This is a control cabin for a subsea trencher plough. That lays equipment on the seabed to facilitate energy transfer. ORA Catapult, it's a renewable energy offshore company. Suppliers will send in different parts that they might want tested, and we do it for them. At the port, we've got four different areas. Sometimes I can be on, say, in the warehouse. I could be unloading ships, project cargo, bulk handling, loading trains, anything really. It's a variety of stuff. Getting these turbines built in the middle of the ocean and linking them with deep-sea cables takes a lot of coordinating, meaning a lot of construction roles and apprenticeships. At school, it was either you go to university or you go to college. It wasn't do apprenticeships. So college, all you did was work-related stuff. It was all paper-based. It wasn't ever anything practical, where this apprenticeship, you get to do the practical side of it, and you do get to go to college as well. When you first start off as an apprentice, it isn't the best pay, but you have to think you're learning. You're trying to learn your trade. It all depends where you work, but my wage got troubled from being an apprentice to where I am now. Prior to this, I was thinking a job's a job. You just do it just to live, really, to earn some money. But now I do enjoy getting up in the morning and coming to work, which I suppose that's the biggest part for me. We all want a great future. So have a think about getting into this. Because whatever your grades, skills or interests, whatever your personality, or however you look at things, and whether you like working with these, these or these, there are so many different roles to choose from and loads of training opportunities to help launch you into an exciting career. So whether you want to work here, here or here, in construction, the opportunities are endless. Here's a question for you. What do you think the average construction worker looks like? Are you imagining someone with a high viz and a hard hat? You might be surprised. What do you hate? I was going to say people, but that's a bit unsociable, isn't it? Does your job involve telling people what to do a lot? Probably not a necessity, but I do it anyway. What did you do at uni? A degree. Do you have to have, like, high viz? Depends where I am. Do you need a degree to do your job? I wouldn't say you would need a degree to do my job, no. What did you do at uni? I haven't been to uni. Have you discovered any new skills, and what are they? How to carry off a hard hat and big boots. Do you like everyone you work with? I do. I was a bit worried going into construction as a girl, but I was very welcomed. Would you change anything about your job? Yeah, I'd start later so I could have a really long lie-in. Are you well-paid? I believe I am well-paid, yeah. What's one thing that you hate? I hate litter. I hate seeing litter in the streets. Do some of your colleagues work higher up? Yeah, a lot of my colleagues work higher up, yeah. Physically? Higher up? Not metaphorically. I think electricity. Yeah, I think number two is quantity, so... Yeah, but I think number one's a great operator cos she's a dirty. OK, so one is one, two is two, three is two, four is four. And time's up! Number one, were we right? Probably not. Number two, were we right? Probably no. Number three, were we right? Yes, you were. Number four, were we right? You were. Number five, were we right? You were. What are the right boards? OK. I think the biggest surprise is you. I just didn't see it. It's not what you'd expect. Yeah. I saw one of them, maybe. No, that does fit. Didn't see those two coming. It's cos I thought you might be a crane operator. Like electricians. It just surprised me. I think you had a really good point, that you're juggling emails. So you must get it on email. You seem like you could be in charge. I'm trying. That's a good thing. Also, we thought cos you just started SIGFORM, the assistant might make sense. Yeah, assistant with a QM. So, how did you do? Tricky, right? There's no formula for working out the obvious person for a role. Because, well, there's no such thing as the obvious person. It can be anyone. There are so many opportunities. You could be flying drones or working with AI. We went to Glasgow to find out more. We're providing an opportunity for industry to invest in innovation. We've got machinery from robotics to 3D printing. This sort of technology is starting to filter its way into the construction industry. 90% of the Scottish housing is timber frame manufactured. A lot of that now is off-site. Off-site manufacturing is when you built elements of houses inside a factory environment that you can just crane into place rather than building it all from scratch on site. There's such a wide range of job opportunities, much more than just necessarily standing in a field with a shovel in the rain and the wind. We have interns and workers from physics backgrounds, from maths, doing really, really detailed, really accurate work that you wouldn't necessarily have considered construction. We bridge the gap between academia and industry. There's a lot of research getting done in universities and what we do is we make sure that all the research that's getting done actually has real-life impact. At the moment, we're doing a lot of work within housing and that's to make sure that the houses are built with low carbon, more sustainably, that they cost less to live in and that they are built of a high quality and better affordability. An interesting project we're working on at the moment is insulation using recycled cleaning waste. So that's the products used in the cleaning process can actually be chopped down, made insulation and put back in the houses that they were originally cleaning. We have an event coming up where we're looking at collaborating with space tech and it's how satellites can impact upon the construction industry. We're looking to get the best from other industries and bring it into this industry and see how that can help us develop. You can certainly come in as a graduate. You can also come in as an apprentice as well. You don't necessarily have to go to university to get a good career within this industry. A lot of the most successful people joined as apprentices and worked their way up. Coming from school, you don't hear about off-site manufacturing a lot. I've learned a lot in here. I've probably learned more day-to-day handling of it than I would at uni. Regardless what your teachers say, uni isn't always the be-all, end-all. I do think there's a lot of different routes you can go down. In the future, I think it will be important for people to have a good set of skills related to technology. There'll be job roles out there that don't exist at the moment, the same way that the job I'm doing didn't exist when I started studying. I think we'll have a lot more females working within the industry. I think we'll attract younger people because it'll be seen as a more technology-advanced industry. Change has been progressing slowly and we're now seeing a real upturn in the rate that's going at. So it'll definitely look different in five to ten years. My name is Gabe Lynch and I was a commercial apprentice for Barrett Developments. Coming into the apprenticeship, I'd done my GCSEs, I went to college for a bit, but decided an apprenticeship was something that I wanted to pursue and was really interested in. The pay's actually quite good and I think people coming straight out of school, having that regular pay coming in is absolutely great and if you go into college, that's all paid for so you can do both of those things at the same time. Working in the buying team, we look after the procurement of all sorts of different materials for construction projects. Coming into it, I thought I'm going to be an apprentice, I'm probably going to be doing filing and not really getting involved, but when I got in there and started on my apprenticeship, they just started throwing more and more things at me to do, which was a great way of learning. Before, I wouldn't have been able to speak on the phone to somebody with confidence, but now I can pick up the phone and quite happily speak to somebody about a construction-related subject. I won the CITB Apprentice of the Year for Great Britain award, which was just amazing to be recognised for all the hard work that you do put in. It was a really proud moment. I've just started doing the university programme through Barrett's as well, which is great, so I'd like to complete that and then I'd just like to progress through to management. I think it's just a great industry to be in. If I could go back, I'd definitely push myself towards an apprenticeship. It's such a great experience, it's a fantastic way to start your career. Home, it's different for everyone, but it's not always a straightforward path to finding one. Today, overcrowded cities and lack of affordable housing make owning a home seem like licking your elbow. Impossible. We need more houses. So how do we turn this into a home? And not just one, what about a whole new town? But these homes have to do a lot more than just put a roof over people's heads. Yeah, like what? What makes a home a home and a town a town? If you were designing a brand new town like Sherford, what would you want it to be like? Let's find out how the people who built this went about it. Could you do better? What goes into planning a town? A huge amount. So there's years and years and years of preparation work that goes into planning. They look at how the houses are laid out, how the environment's going to work, how the community is going to work together. And then when the residents start to move in, that's what really makes it a town. And how many homes are being built here? 5,500 in total. What do you think makes a house a home? It all starts to look like a home once we start to add the nice things like the tiling and the carpets and the kitchens, and then obviously people's own personal stamp when they move in. I'm here with Owen, the site manager, to find out a bit more about what's going on here at Sherford. What sort of opportunities are there for people wanting to work in construction? Oh, the opportunities are huge. We look at anybody and everybody when it comes to taking on people in construction. And what sort of qualities would you look for in people you were looking to employ? What we look for is people who are driven, focused, wanting to maybe learn something different, something they might not be able to learn. We want people to be informed better at school level that the construction industry is a good opportunity where they can earn really good money. Why did you want to be an apprentice? I've been a chef for 15 years, about time to give that up, so I decided to retrain as a carpenter. What's your favourite part of the apprenticeship and the training? Lunch break. No, it's the carpentry. It's definitely carpentry, working with the wood. I've had a great passion for it. What was your pathway into the job? I went down to the college to find out about apprenticeships and then they pointed me towards Sherbrooke. What advice would you give to young people who might want to get into this industry? Definitely consider it because there's a lot of different options when you leave school and stuff, but a trade, you can't go wrong with a trade, really. It's guaranteed work pretty much for the rest of your life. What's it like being a woman in construction? It's no different, actually. I get treated the same as everybody else. I think that if you can prove that you can do the job, then you earn your respect that way, so being female doesn't really make any difference at all. And how do you think we can encourage more women to get into this industry? It's about getting children out to have a look for themselves to see that it's not such a scary environment to be in. Yeah, it's a massive job. You have to think about pretty much everything, from the big things like the overall town plan to even door handles, and then you have to build it. Imagine designing something like this and then seeing it finished with people living in it. It's like your town. Not many people can say they created a town. So, what would be your favourite part of designing a town? Let me guess, the sewage system, right? OK, maybe not, but sewers are kind of important. I mean, someone's got to sort out what we flush down the loo. Did you know that London's current sewer system is 150 years old and it was built for a population less than half of the size of what it is now? That's why there are currently thousands of people being employed to redesign and build it. Let's see what they're getting up to. So, there you have it. We've tried to give you a look at what it's like working inside the world of construction. What do you think? You can email us questions or tweet us now. We're also linked up with two schools. We have the Barrack Academy up in Northumberland. Hi, guys. Give us a wave. And we also have the Jack Hunt School up in Peterborough. We also have three experts with us in the studio. We have Dawn, who knows everything you need to know about apprenticeships. James, who can answer all your questions about construction. And Katie, who you saw fooling around in one of the clips. So, let's get straight to our first question from Beric. Hi, my name's Marcia. My question is, what sector in construction will be the most in demand in the next seven years? That is great, and this question is for James. Ah, first one on the spot. One of the leading roles in construction that's going to need a lot of people joining over the next four years, we have civil engineering, we have quantity surveying. Bricklaying, in terms of one of the trades, is going to be one of the highest demands over the next four years. In fact, in construction, between now and 2022, we're going to need 158,000 new people joining the construction industry, but those are just some of the roles that are going to be most important. Great. Now, next over to Preetabha, where we do have another question. Hi there. Hello. My question is, what is the average starting wage of a 21-year-old in the industries shown today? Great. This question will be for Dawn. Oh, wow. I think it's a really difficult one to answer. When you join the industry, depending on how you join, if you're an apprentice or whether you go through the university route, there are different routes. But the important thing to know is that at the beginning, you're earning while you're learning. So your wage might be quite low in the beginning, but it will soon add up over the years to come. And I think that the guy from the film, he actually said he came on three times after he'd come out of his apprenticeship. So, James, have you got something to add to that? Yeah, just to add to that, a recent report showed that construction is actually the second highest paying sector in the UK. I believe the average wage for somebody who works in construction is just over £600 a week. So in terms of the earning potential of the industry, it's the second highest in the country. Great. I hope that answered your question. Now over to Berwick Academy, where we have another question. Hello, my name's Christian. I'm there. How will Brexit affect the construction industry? Who wants to answer this question? James, do you want to answer this question? Well, actually, CITB have produced a report that goes into the details in regards to Brexit and its impact on the construction industry. Certain areas have higher migrant workers than others. So it would be really good if you go onto the CITB website, there's loads of information that go into quite detail about Brexit and the impacts that it may have on the construction industry. Great. I hope that answered your question. Now we have another question. Hi there. Hello, my name's Melanie, and my question is, is the construction industry competitive and what are the management roles like? So who wants to take this question? I'm happy to take that one. Go on, Dawn. Right, okay. I think you probably saw from the film, the management side is really, really exciting. There's some absolutely amazing projects to get involved in in construction. And they can be small, they can be large, but the management side is where all the decisions about the projects are made. It's absolutely inspiring to see. James, would you like to add to that? Yeah, there's so many varieties. You can be a project manager, quantity surveyor, civil engineer, doesn't really matter what your particular like is. There'll be something within the construction industry for you, whether it be architecture, design, those are the things that you're into. And in terms of competitiveness, the construction industry is the second largest employer employing almost 3 million people across the UK. So it's very competitive and there's loads of jobs within the industry. Great. And I do believe that Katie does want to add to this. Yeah, it was just really about in terms of progression within the construction industry. Even if you don't start off at a management level, it is an industry that really wants to push people forward. So if you have the willing to go into management, people are very willing to train you up, to put you through courses in order to get you there. Great. Now over to Beric for another question. Hi, my name is Amy. And my question is, what career opportunities are there for women within construction? And can you please name some of them? Katie, I feel like you should be the one answering this. So I'm a crane operator in construction. I think in terms of what's available for women, it's exactly the same as what's available for men because we can do anything as well. So whether you want to be a crane operator, a project manager, a construction manager, whether you wanted to be a carpenter or an electrician, it's entirely up to you. In terms of, I can talk about crane operating, anyone can do it now because the controls are just like driving a car. It's just learning something new. I hope that helps. Great. Don't be afraid to join Construction Girls. Now over to Peter. Hello, my question is, how do the students begin to consider what route to take and what is the right job for them? Dawn, this one is definitely, definitely for you. Thank you. I would really recommend going on Go Construct, the website. It's got a wealth of information regarding all the different avenues going into construction. There's also a port on there which actually shows you, it asks you some questions about what actually you'd like to do and then it marries up the job that's best suited for you. So for example, you could be an adrenaline junkie or you could be a mathematician, but there will be a job in construction that's suitable for you. I believe James also wants to add to this. Yeah, just to add to that, Dawn's absolutely right. On the Go Construct website, there's a brilliant page or a brilliant part down just halfway through that says personality quiz. So for any of you students who are unsure as to what you want to do, what roles there are within the construction industry that you think would be best for you, it goes through a list of really interesting and quirky questions that does marry you up to a particular job role or family of job roles within the construction industry. So please, give it a try. Great, I hope that has helped you answer your question. Now over to Berwick Academy. Hi, my name is Bobby and my question is how fast is the construction industry growing? How fast is the construction industry growing? Who wants to take this question? Yeah, I'll take this. James? Do you want to, James? So the construction industry is forecast to grow over the next four years. I believe it's 1.8%, but at the moment it turns out 110 billion pounds a year in terms of its output within the UK. And that's, I believe it's about 7% of the UK's GDP, which is massive. So in terms of construction's growth and moving forward and how much it's worth, it's gigantic. Great, and I hope that has helped you. Now, we do have an email come through and the question says how do you make an impression on an employer and what are they looking for? And I'm presuming this one is for Dawn. Hi, yes, I think to do an apprenticeship you need an employer and the best thing to do is to do your research. Decide what it is that you want to do and what type of company and what type of projects you want to get involved in. Do you want to work on residential sites? Do you want to get involved in some of these big commercial sites that you see? And then start targeting those employers that work in those kind of arenas. And then make those phone calls. Make that your voice heard. Send off your CVs. Follow it up with the phone calls afterwards. Go to local colleges. See if anybody's got any contacts. Don't give up. Once you've got the opportunity, then it's your chance to shine and show your interest in that side of things. Construction is a fantastic place to work and just keep going. You will find that right employer for you. And I hope that's answered your question. Now over to Peter for another question. Hello. I would like to ask how can students gain work experience in these areas of work? Work experience. He's going to take this one. When it comes to work experience, one of the best ways, as Dawn was mentioning, when it comes to looking for jobs that are similar with work experience is to approach a lot of the employers. The construction industry, it's all about kind of talking to people, meeting people. So you can call up one of your local construction companies. If there's a particular trade that you're interested in or a particular management or technical role, go through the yellow pages online. Find what companies are around and local to you or your school. You can contact them that way. Most schools will have a work-related learning person that they can speak to who may speak to employers on their behalf. Or you can contact CITB through Go Construct, and one of your CITB advisors will be able to assist as well. Great. I'm hoping that helped you out there. Now over to Berwick Academy. Got a question for us? My name is Josie, and my question is, what opportunities are there in construction for higher level degree apprenticeships? Dawn. The construction apprenticeship arena is actually changing. It's a really exciting time, and there's absolutely loads of routes coming through that are new. Institute for Apprenticeship website is a fantastic website, and it will list. You can just click on apprenticeships and click on construction, and it gives you a wide range of different levels. So apprenticeships today start at Level 2 and they go up to Level 6, which is a degree level, and there's absolutely loads coming through. So I would say definitely recommend take a check out on that one. Great. Now over to Peterborough, where I presume you guys have another question for us. How do we motivate young people to gain experience in these unknown jobs and careers? Who wants to take this one? Katie? Yeah. Go on. I think motivating young people is, a lot of it's based around having good role models. So the more people they see like themselves doing these jobs in the construction industry, doing all different roles, the more likely they're going to look at the industry as a possibility for themselves. So I think as companies, we need to promote what we do a lot better. We need to promote who we've got, what they do, so they can explain to the younger people. There you go. Now over to Berwick Academy, where I presume you guys have another question. Hello. My name is Georgia. Hi, Georgia. My question is, can you give me an example of a career pathway for someone who has left school with a good set of A-levels in science and maths? James, you seem happy for that one. Go on, James. Science and maths, you've got a multitude of roles that you can go into. On the maths side, a lot of people don't know about a role called quantity surveying. They're kind of like the accountants of the construction industry, but instead of dealing with thousands and hundreds, they deal with millions. And they'll work with the subcontractors, the tradespeople on site, they'll work with the managers, they'll deal with the large numbers. So if you're into maths, then quantity surveying, estimating, it's a similar type of role where you estimate how much it will cost for your project to be built. But then on the science-y side, you've got civil engineering. So civil engineers are the men and women in the industry who build the massive kind of big towers, big buildings, you know, the gherking, bridges, railways. They look at the kind of geometrical forces. They think about all the natural forces that work on a building. So they're going to have to have that science side of them. You've got geotechnicians. You've got all sorts of types of roles when it comes to somebody who's good with maths and science. And they're extremely well paid. And these are jobs and qualifications you can take around the world. I could add to that as well. Donna wants to add to that one as well. The routes in as well is, like I said earlier, there are the apprenticeship routes in. So you can go in straight at a level three or you can do A-levels and you may have an entry route in at a level four. So from an apprenticeship angle, there is that angle. Or you can go direct to university after doing A-levels as well. So the choice is yours. There you go. And now we've just received another email. And this one is from Ali. And it says, what is the highest paid job within construction? That's a tough one. It does vary, to be honest. So project managers can make upwards of 100,000 a year. But then, like I say, it could be with a civil engineer. They can earn 80 plus, 90. Some quantity surveyors are when you get to your kind of senior levels and you become chartered. That's an extra kind of professional level that you reach. You can be talking about the high 80s, 90s and again above 100,000. But within the industry, it does depend on who you work for, where you work, how experienced you are. And ultimately, how good you are at your job. But in terms of earning potential, like we said, it's one of, in fact, the second largest paying industries in the UK. So, yeah, you can make a lot of money in construction. And I'm presuming, Dawn, you also want to add something to this as well? Yeah, I just think skills gap is the other thing, is that there are certain trades that are in demand. At the moment, bricklayers seem to be very much in demand. We're on a big government funded project at the moment about house building, building more homes for people. And to do that, we need bricklayers. And there is such a shortage out there. So because there's a shortage, that will then mean that salaries will automatically grow. So, yeah, there is lots of opportunities to earn lots of money. Great, there you go. And I hope that's answered your question. Now over to Peter Brough. Hi, my name is Lorena and I'd like to ask what qualifications do you need to have a career in engineering? Hi Lorena, and who wants to answer this one? Maths would be a great one. Some sciences as well, if that's your particular thing. But if you have maths and science as a basic, then those are the types of qualifications that you need to get into engineering. Engineering is massive. You've got electrical engineering, as we said, you've got civil engineering. You've got different types of technicians that get involved in engineering when it comes to the construction of any building. So it's a wide variety of roles, but I would say mainly maths and science. Great, there you go. And we have just received a question from Twitter. And it says, how is the construction industry responding to the introduction of T-levels and communicating the opportunities with schools and young people? And this one is from King Edward School. So who's going to answer this one? OK, T-levels is something that's new. Construction is definitely, I think we are ahead of some other sectors, I'm right in saying. They're at a level three and above. So the entry level is more A-level for T-levels. It is very new. It is something that I'm not a subject expert on, but we are definitely one of the industries that's actually get involved in it in quite early days. I'm not sure if that answers all the questions. Just to add on to that, within the industry, we are looking and working with our employers because one of the things with T-levels is the work experience days. It's quite a requirement. So what we are doing is working with employers to see how they can work with schools and colleges to increase the amount of work experience, interaction with employers and engagement with employers so that they're able to achieve their T-levels. Over to Berwick Academy for a question. Hello, my name is Jordan. My question is, are there any roles in construction for people who are studying art and humanities? Who wants to take this question? When it comes to art, we have designers. You've got design managers. You've got architects. By the way, design managers are the people that have a look when it comes to planning a construction project. They think about how the building is going to look, what it's going to be like in the local environment. You've got town planners, as we saw in the video earlier. They kind of design what the whole town will look like when it comes to designing something. As we said, you've got interior designers, you've got painting and decorators. When it comes to that arty side of an individual, there are loads of roles within the construction industry. And I hope that's answered your question. Unfortunately, we are almost out of time, so we do only have time for one more question. Over to Peterborough. Hello, my name is Ali and I would like to know, what are top companies doing to reduce inequality in their industries? Inequality. Katie, can you answer this question? I think it's high on the agenda. Diversity and inclusion, generally, is high on the agenda in most construction companies at the moment. I know in Langaroc, we're trying to make an inclusive environment for everyone. I'm not sure exactly what other companies are doing, but you're seeing a lot more diversity on site. People are actually putting targets towards how many people. I'm not sure targets are always a great thing, but it gives companies something to aim for. Diversity targets on Tideway are very, very high, for instance. I think Tideway is about 50%, which is massive. 50% women, 50% men. So I think it's on everyone's agenda and the industry is changing towards that. I hope that has helped you. And that is all we have time for. But I would like to say a big thank you to the two schools, Berwick Academy and also the Jack Hunt School in Peterborough. And to also our experts here in the studio, Dawn, James and, of course, Katie. And don't forget, if you want to find out more about construction, you can go to GoConstruct.org as it is a great place to start and you'll find out a lot of information there. Don't forget to watch out for the next WOW Show. But in the meantime, you can catch up anytime on YouTube. But for now, it's goodbye.