Why speed is winning the best construction leaders right now

Welcome to the first issue of The Lechley Brief.

This is a short weekly read on the UK construction leadership market, sent every Monday morning. Each issue covers what I have seen in the market that week, the construction news worth your time, senior people on the move, and a useful idea or two you can put to work. It takes about three minutes to read.

It also lands at a fitting moment. We have just refreshed the Lechley brand and launched a new website at www.lechley.com. The new brand frames our new ideas and a sharper process, and it reflects the changes happening across the industry and the technology now shaping it.

One ask. This newsletter is for you, so I want it to be useful. If there is a topic, a question, or a part of the market you would like covered in a future edition, reply and tell me. I will build it in.

From my desk

This week was dominated by senior hiring in the Northwest. Most of my time went into healthcare programme leadership and a people-director search, with first interviews now being arranged in Manchester.

The pattern I keep seeing is speed. The strongest leaders are in two or three conversations at once, so the firms that move quickly and brief well are the ones securing them. A slow, vague process loses good people inside a fortnight.

I also published a new piece this week on what a place-led government under Andy Burnham could mean for construction. If power and capital shift to the city regions, the binding constraint becomes labour and local leadership, not Treasury sign-off, and the contractors who build teams for devolved, multi-stakeholder delivery will be the ones that win. Read the full piece.

The week in construction

• Sizewell C plans to move as much work offsite as possible as the skills shortage bites, with chief executive Nigel Cann telling MPs that productivity is the programme's key risk. The talent question is now a delivery question, and demand for offsite and DfMA leadership will follow. Construction News
• Glenigan's summer forecast holds its recovery call, describing a market that is active but constrained. The workload is there; confidence is the brake. BDC Magazine
• Winvic signed a contract worth more than £112m with Latimer, the development arm of Clarion Housing Group. Affordable and rented housing keeps moving while other sectors wait. Construction Magazine

People on the move

• Rachel Warren joins Kier as Group Finance Director.
• Robert Bird moves to lead Multiplex's engineering arm.

Two senior finance and engineering appointments inside a fortnight. Boardroom moves at this level usually signal a strategy shift worth watching.

Other areas of interest

Away from construction, a note on leadership hiring more widely. The half-life of a job specification is shrinking. Boards increasingly hire for adaptability over a fixed checklist, because the role will change inside eighteen months. For senior leaders, that means your last turnaround or reorganisation is now more saleable than your job title.

One useful thing

If you are hiring at senior level in a tight market, audit your process speed before you build your shortlist. Map every step from first call to offer, then cut the gaps. The pattern is consistent: the firm that reaches a clear yes first usually wins the leader, not the firm that pays the most.

Introducing the Lechley Community

Alongside the search work, we are building the Lechley Community, a place for construction leaders and the people coming up behind them to connect, share what they are seeing, and grow their careers.

The aim is simple. Most people in this industry only think about their network when they need it. The Community is where you build it before then, with market intelligence, candid conversation, and people who understand the sector.

If that sounds useful, come and join us at community.lechley.com.

Right now I am running senior commercial and people-leadership searches across healthcare and major projects. The work is not limited to the Northwest; I recruit across the UK and overseas, and many of the best opportunities are never advertised.

If you would like to discuss a brief, or explore how the process works, contact me. And if you are quietly open to the right move, reply and tell me what good would look like.