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Edge Careers Opens London Office!

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Edge Careers Opens London Office!

After a very successful year in 2015, Edge Careers are excited to announce that we will be opening a fourth UK office at the beginning of February, which will be situated in Marylebone, London. Being in a central location in the capital, our London office lets us work closely with a number of our key clients, and makes it easier to meet with candidates, providing a solid base for construction recruitment in London.

The opening of our fourth office marks a huge step forward for Edge Careers entering 2016, which shows the level of growth that we as a company are achieving and creates a great opportunity for the continued expansion of Edge Careers.

With the opening of the new London office, Edge Careers are on the look out for talented recruitment consultants in the London area. If you would like the opportunity to join the Edge Careers team please follow this link.

Construction Recruitment in London Construction Recruitment in London 2

Edge Careers are Construction and Engineering Recruitment Experts who pride ourselves on offering the highest level of service in the industry to all of our candidates and clients.

To become an Edge Careers candidate, please click here to register your details. If you are a client looking to fill a vacancy, please click here, or alternatively contact one of our consultants to discuss your requirements in more detail via our Contact Us page.

Follow Edge Careers on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for all our latest news, exclusive competitions and events.

www.edgecareers.co.uk

 

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Construction Forecast Downgraded

Forecasters have lowered construction growth predictions for this year and next owing to a slowdown in third quarter housing and commercial activity.

Even with a weaker growth forecast, contractors can still count a near 20% rise in construction from 2015 to 2019. This will be driven by growth in the three largest construction sectors; private housing, commercial and infrastructure.

According to the Construction Products Association industry output is now expected to grow 3.6% in 2015, down from the expected 4.9% spurt forecast back in the summer.

Next year the industry’s growth rate is expected to be slightly ahead of 2015 at 3.8%, down from the 4.2% first forecast.

Forecast highlights

Construction growth downgraded

 

 

Construction output: up 3.6% in 2015 and 3.8% in 2016
Private housing starts: up 7% this year and 5% in 2016
Public housing starts: down 10% in 2015 and 5% in 2016
Offices construction: up 8% in 2015 and 7% in 2016
Infrastructure output: up 13.2% in 2015 and 7.6% in 2016
Key risks include skills shortages and government austerity

 

 

 

Dr Noble Francis, economics director, said: “We remain positive about prospects for the construction industry. The slowdown in Q3 activity is expected to be temporary.”

“The commercial sector is forecast to enjoy growth from 2016 averaging 3.9% per year through to 2019. New offices construction is expected to be the primary driver, with increasing activity in cities such as Birmingham and Manchester as well as growth in the capital.”

“Retail construction is expected to improve but a consolidation of expansion plans by major supermarket chains will constrain growth rates.”

“Infrastructure activity continues to thrive. Output in the sector is forecast to grow 11.2% on average per year between 2015 and 2019, supported in large part by the £411bn National Infrastructure Plan.”

He said that the roads and energy sub-sectors would be strongest but work is forecast to increase throughout the forecast period in all key sub-sectors; roads, energy, rail, water and sewerage.

“Private housing starts are forecast to rise, with major house builders signalling their intention to build more homes over the next 12-18 months,” said Dr Francis.

“Help to Buy accounts for one quarter of new build purchases and will help to sustain demand. House prices continue to increase in most regions, especially in London and the South East, illustrating a strong underlying demand.”

“Public housing, however, is expected to be adversely affected by uncertainty and a lack of funding due to the extension of Right to Buy to housing associations and cuts to social rent. As a result, public housing starts are estimated to fall 10.0% in 2015 and a further 5.0% in 2016.”

But Dr Francis warned: “While growth prospects in construction remain positive, there are significant risks. Government austerity focuses on current spending rather than capital investment but the risk remains that if government cannot reduce current spending as much as it anticipates, it may cut public construction projects to achieve its aims of eliminating the public sector deficit.”

“In addition, within the construction industry, the key concerns regard skills shortages, which have already been reported in the housing sector but may become more prevalent across the wider industry over the next 12-18 months due to the forecast growth.”

This story is by constructionenquirer.com

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£100bn for Infrastructure by 2020

Chancellor pledges £100bn by 2020 for infrastructure

 

George Osbourne
Chancellor George Osborne will today launch the National Infrastructure Commission and promise to stick to his pledge to spend £100bn in this Parliament for new roads, rail, flood defences and other vital projects.

He will set out plans to ‘get Britain building’, saying that infrastructure will be at the heart of next month’s Spending Review.

In the review, the Chancellor will set out plans to raise billions of pounds from a suite of asset sales that will be ploughed back into infrastructure projects.

Later today in York, Osborne will also confirm the seven commissioners who will help former Cabinet minister Lord Adonis run the independent National Infrastructure Commission.

The line-up includes Lord Heseltine and experienced industry bigwig, Sir John Armitt, who backed the formation of the commission in a Labour policy document before the last election.

NIC commissioners
Lord Heseltine – the former deputy prime minister who has long championed the regeneration of Britain’s inner cities through infrastructure investment
Sir John Armitt – the former chair of the Olympic Delivery Authority, and next year’s President of the Institute of Civil Engineers
Professor Tim Besley – a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee and the LSE’s Growth Commission, which recommended an independent infrastructure body
Demis Hassabis – artificial intelligence researcher, neuroscientist and head of DeepMind Technologies
Sadie Morgan – a founding director of dRMM Architects and Design Panel Chair of HS2
Bridget Rosewell – a senior adviser at Volterra and former Chief Economist and Chief Economic Adviser to the Greater London Authority
Sir Paul Ruddock – chairman of the Victoria & Albert Museum and the University of Oxford Endowment

The Chancellor said: “I am determined to shake Britain out of its inertia on infrastructure and end the situation where we trail our rivals when it comes to building everything from the housing to the power stations that our children will need.

“At the Spending Review, I will commit to investing £100bn in infrastructure over the next five years and we are creating an independent commission to give us a long-term, unbiased analysis of the country’s major infrastructure needs.

“We need to think long-term and deliver a cross-party consensus on what we need to build.”

The commission will produce a report at the start of each five-year Parliament, offering recommendations for priority infrastructure projects and hold governments to account for their delivery.

Its initial focus will be in three key areas. These include identifying priorities for future investment in the North’s strategic transport infrastructure to improve connectivity between cities, especially east-west across the Pennines.

London’s transport system, particularly reviewing strategic options and identifying priorities for future investment in large scale transport improvements – on road, rail and underground – including Crossrail 2.

Energy, particularly exploring how the UK can better balance supply and demand, aiming for an energy market where prices are reflective of costs to the overall system

This story is by constructionenquirer.com

 

 

Edge Careers are Construction and Engineering Recruitment Experts who pride ourselves on offering the highest level of service in the industry to all of our candidates and clients.

To become an Edge Careers candidate, please click here to register your details. If you are a client looking to fill a vacancy, please click here, or alternatively contact one of our consultants to discuss your requirements in more detail via our Contact Us page.

Follow Edge Careers on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for all our latest news, exclusive competitions and events.

www.edgecareers.co.uk

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Costain to trial Self-Healing Concrete

Costain starts self-healing concrete site trials

Costain Logo
The first major trial of self-healing concrete in the UK is being undertaken at a site in the South Wales Valleys.

Costain and researchers from Bath, Cambridge and Cardiff universities are piloting three separate concrete-healing technologies for the first time in real-world settings.

The pioneering trials are taking place on construction sites on the Heads of the Valleys road improvement scheme in South Wales – the A465.

Eventually the researchers hope to incorporate them into a single system that could be used to automatically repair concrete in the built environment.

It is estimated that around £40bn a year is spent in the UK on the repair and maintenance of structures, the majority of which are made from concrete.

Once damage is detected, the systems being trialled will set in motion reactions that repair the concrete autonomously without the need for human intervention.

Self-healing systems
The first technique uses shape-shifting materials, known as shape-memory polymers, to repair large cracks in concrete. When these materials are heated with a small current, they can transform into a different shape that the material has ‘memorised’. The researchers believe that these materials can be embedded into concrete and used to close cracks or make them smaller.In the second technique, researchers will pump both organic and inorganic healing agents through a network of thin tunnels in the concrete to help repair damage.In the third technique, the team will embed tiny capsules, or lightweight aggregates, containing both bacteria and healing agents into the concrete. It is anticipated that once cracks occur, these capsules will release their cargos and, in the case of the bacteria, the nutrients that will enable them to function and produce calcium carbonate, which the researchers envisage will heal the cracks in the concrete.

The researchers have cast six concrete walls at the test site, each containing the different technologies.

Over time the team will load the concrete at specific angles to induce cracks, and then monitor how effective each of the self-healing techniques is.

Oliver Teall, a civil engineer at Costain, said: “From this trial we should gain an insight into the feasibility of constructing a full-scale structure using these techniques and their early-stage effects on structural properties.

“We will be monitoring properties such as stiffness, permeability and the mechanical damage recovery of the trial walls in comparison with conventional reinforced concrete walls.”

This story is by constructionenquirer.com

 

 

Edge Careers are Construction and Engineering Recruitment Experts who pride ourselves on offering the highest level of service in the industry to all of our candidates and clients.

To become an Edge Careers candidate, please click here to register your details. If you are a client looking to fill a vacancy, please click here, or alternatively contact one of our consultants to discuss your requirements in more detail via our Contact Us page.

Follow Edge Careers on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for all our latest news, exclusive competitions and events.

www.edgecareers.co.uk

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