The Lechley Brief
If this was useful, the Brief is where I write about it first. My weekly email on leadership, talent and what is moving in UK construction and infrastructure, in your inbox every Monday morning.
10 Aug 2026
The talent shortage has already arrived. The numbers are starker than most boards realise.
One thing I have learned placing senior leaders in construction: the talent shortage is not on its way. It has already arrived, and the numbers are starker than most boards realise.
Most conversations about the skills gap still treat it as a problem for the next decade. Something to plan for, a line in a risk register. The data says otherwise. It shows up now, in senior roles that sit open for months, in the premiums being paid to move people, and in programmes quietly re-sequenced because the leadership team is not yet in place.
I pulled the data together in a piece on the UK construction talent crisis. If you are hiring at any level of seniority, or weighing up your own options in a market this tight, it is worth ten minutes of your time.
Lechley Associates runs retained executive search for UK construction leadership. Read how a retained construction executive search runs.
Next step
If you have a senior appointment of your own to make, this is how I run a retained search.
How retained search worksHow retained search works
Similar blogs
Oct 2026
The year we didn't hire anyone
Nobody remembers cutting the trainees in 2009. Ten years on, it is who is missing from every senior shortlist. The long read on downturns and the people we never hired.
Oct 2026
Every project starts with setting out
Why the first ten years and the last ten need different front doors to the same industry.
Sept 2026
Waiting until you feel ready costs you a year
The QSs who wait to feel fully ready before applying move a year later than the ones who don't, and it shows over a career.
Sept 2026
Who tells your chief executive they are wrong?
Most growing contractors have a chair or a non-executive. Far fewer have anyone whose actual job is to challenge them.
