Back, and September is already busy

First, an apology. This is the first Brief since 17 August. I took the back end of the summer off, properly off, and the newsletter went with me. Normal service resumes today, and September is already filling up.

From my desk

The first week back has set the tone for the month. A new retained search landed on Thursday: an Operations Manager for an international main contractor delivering data centres for hyperscale clients in the UK. The title is the client's; the scope is what most UK contractors would call Operations Director. Number two to the Managing Director, three to five major projects nationally, and a portfolio building towards £300m to £400m a year. Alongside it, a property and accommodation lead for a purpose-built student scheme in Newcastle, and the healthcare roles from August are still live.

The market observation is a contradiction. Construction output fell for a twentieth month in August, with housing the worst of it. In the same set of numbers, job cuts were the slowest in a year, and the REC data for August showed construction leading the first rise in vacancies in two years. Output and hiring are pulling in different directions.

My desk agrees with the hiring line. The work is in data centres, hospitals, nuclear and water, and the people who have delivered those programmes before are the ones getting the calls.

The week in construction

• The construction PMI fell to 44.3 in August, a twentieth month below 50, with housing activity at 37.6 and civils and commercial both easing. Firms shed jobs at the slowest pace since September 2025. The top line and the hiring line are diverging; the contractors with infrastructure and commercial order books are holding on to their people. Source: Construction Enquirer
• Mace and Arcadis have been appointed to lead the £2.5bn expansion of Luton Airport, shaping delivery of a new terminal and airfield works. Aviation is back as a programme career destination. Delivery partner seats fill first; the packages, and the site leadership to run them, follow over the next 18 months. Source: Construction Enquirer
• Crest Nicholson issued a profit warning and now expects a £10m operating loss after a weak summer, while Ascot brickwork specialist Harlequin fell into administration and creditors backed Ardmore's CVA. Housing is where the pain sits. If your next move is into a housebuilder or its supply chain, read the lender position before the offer letter. Sources: Crest Nicholson, Harlequin, Ardmore
• Robertson, Caddick and Esh won places on Karbon Homes' £208m extra care framework across the North East and Yorkshire, running five years to 2031. A regional framework with five years of visibility is exactly where regional operations leaders get hired. Watch the three winners' regional teams this autumn. Source: Construction Enquirer
• Galliford Try won a £110m Severn Trent contract for a 23km treated water transfer scheme in Leicestershire. AMP8 water spending is now converting into awards. Water has quietly become one of the steadier places to build a civils career for the rest of this decade. Source: Construction Enquirer

People on the move

• Emma Loxton joins Balfour Beatty as Chief Strategy Officer in October, from McKinsey, where she was a partner leading the UK advanced industries and transport and infrastructure practices. (Source: Construction Enquirer, 1 Sep)
• Nima Nicolas Aase becomes Regional Managing Director for Europe at Turner & Townsend, moving up from Managing Director for the Nordics. (Source: PBC Today, 3 Sep)
• Roger Forsdyke took up the post of UK Operations Director at Wates Construction on 1 September, from Willmott Dixon, where he was Chief Operating Officer of the interiors business. (Source: Construction News)
• Neil Holm has been appointed Chief Programme Officer at HS2, from the Transpennine Route Upgrade and BAE Systems before that. (Source: Lechley Community, 3 Sep)
• Morgan Sindall Construction has split its Home Counties business in two: Sean Bradley leads the new Northern Home Counties unit as Regional Managing Director, with Matt Guy as Regional Commercial Director and Rod Pavey as Area Director, and Richard Dobson steps up to Regional Managing Director for London. (Source: Lechley Community, 27 Aug)

Other areas of interest

Three weeks ago I launched the Lechley Community, then went on holiday. Not the textbook launch sequence. So here is where it stands, honestly.

The site kept publishing while I was away. More than 150 pieces are now live: every morning, the construction news read for the hiring it sets off, rather than the headline; the senior moves and the seats they leave open; and short opinion pieces on how hiring decisions actually get made. Twelve career pathways sit underneath that, one per discipline, from first role to director, each with real lessons, an exam and a certificate. All of it is free, and sign in is an email address. No password, no card.

What I have learned in three weeks: the opinion pieces get read and replied to; the pathways get started by people earlier in their careers than most of you reading this. If that describes someone on your team, send them the link. And if you want to know why I am giving the market reading away rather than keeping it in the drawer, I wrote that down on Friday: Read the news for the hiring it sets off.

New on the community

• The hiring decision is usually made by minute five (Thoughts)
• The contractor that chose to stop contracting (Insights)
• CITB: construction needs 206,000 more workers by 2030 (News)
• Construction leads a first hiring uptick in two years, REC data shows (News)

All of it free at community.lechley.com.

One useful thing

Read the scope, not the title. The search that landed this week is called Operations Manager; the job is running a £300m to £400m national portfolio as the MD's number two. Plenty of Operations Directors run less. When you read a role, look for the reporting line, the number of concurrent projects and the portfolio value, and judge it on those. When you write your own CV, put the same three numbers in the first five lines. A hiring manager scanning for a multi-project leader will find them; a title will not tell them anything.

What I'm working on

I am appointing an Operations Manager for an international main contractor delivering data centres for hyperscale clients across the UK. The role reports to the UK Managing Director, leads Project Directors across three to five major schemes nationally, and grows with a secured pipeline that more than doubles turnover inside three years. It needs a senior operator from a recognised main contractor with delivered data centre experience and a multi-project, national track record. Retained exclusively with Lechley. If that is your world, or you know whose world it is, I would value the conversation.