Every quarter, UK construction and infrastructure businesses announce dozens of new chief executives, managing directors and directors, and nobody adds them up. The Construction Leadership Moves Index does: how many named senior appointments the trade press reported in the quarter, in which functions, at which employers, and at what kind of business. It is the partner to the Senior Hiring Index, which counts the seats employers advertise. This one counts the seats they fill and announce.
Construction Leadership Moves Index
Who UK construction is appointing to its top seats, counted every quarter.
The index
61 named senior appointments at 56 UK construction and infrastructure employers were reported in the UK trade and business press in Q3 2026.
The busiest function was chief executive and managing director, with 18. Contractors made 16; consultancies 10; clients, operators and regulators 9; the supply chain and manufacturers 9; housebuilders and housing associations 7; industry bodies 6; and employers the index has not yet classified 4. The tables, the chart, every named appointment with its source and the figures to download are in the Q3 2026 edition.
Q4 2026 so far
16 named senior appointments at 16 UK construction and infrastructure employers were reported in the UK trade and business press in Q4 2026 to 1 November 2026.
At the same point in Q3 2026, 23 had been reported (down 7). The quarter's edition follows once it ends.
| Function | Q4 2026 to date |
|---|---|
| Chief executive and managing director | 4 |
| Operations and delivery | 3 |
| Commercial | 2 |
| Finance | 2 |
| Support functions | 2 |
| Pre-construction and work winning | 1 |
| Safety, quality and sustainability | 1 |
| Other leadership | 1 |
| Employer type | Q4 2026 to date |
|---|---|
| Contractor | 5 |
| Client, operator or regulator | 4 |
| Consultancy | 2 |
| Housebuilder or housing association | 1 |
| Industry body | 1 |
| Supply chain and manufacturing | 1 |
| Not classified | 2 |
Quarterly editions
- Q3 2026, July to September 2026: 61 named senior appointments at 56 employers.
The seats employers are advertising, rather than filling, are counted weekly on the Senior Hiring Index. Each employer with enough current activity has its own page, with its arrivals, departures and advertised seats, under employers.
How to read it
The total is the pace of announced change at the top of the industry. It moves with the order book and with results season: a business that has just reported tends to announce its new leadership team in the weeks after.
The functions tell you which seats are turning over. A run of new managing directors and chief executives is a market reorganising its businesses; a run of operations and delivery directors is one mobilising work it has won; commercial and pre-construction appointments tend to follow a change of strategy.
The kind of employer tells you where the leadership demand sits. Contractors make the most appointments in any quarter because there are more of them, so the useful reading is the change from one quarter to the next: consultancies and client bodies hiring leaders ahead of a programme is an early sign of the work that follows.
The most active employers are the ones changing several seats at once. Three or four senior appointments in a quarter is a business restructuring, entering a region or a sector, or rebuilding after departures, and each of those changes who it will want to hire next.
A reported appointment is a seat that has already moved
A reported appointment is a seat that has already moved When a Tier 1 announces a new Managing Director, two leadership teams change: the one gaining a leader and the one losing one.
The index counts the first, quarter by quarter. The second is usually where the next search starts.
Methodology
The index is counted from the news sweep I run across the UK construction and infrastructure press, which has captured senior appointments in volume since June 2026. An appointment counts when the sweep has marked it as UK, in construction or infrastructure, and senior, and when it was reported in one of these publications.
The UK construction and infrastructure trade titles: BE News, Building, Construction Enquirer, Construction News, Construction UK Magazine, Construction Wave, Global Rail News, Highways Magazine, Highways News, Housing Today, Infrastructure Intelligence, Infrastructure Now, Modern Railways, New Civil Engineer, PBC Today, Rail Business Daily, Rail Magazine, Rail Technology Magazine, RailUK, Safer Highways, Scottish Construction Now and The Construction Index. The UK regional business titles: Business Live, BirminghamWorld, Insider Media, Place North West, Place Yorkshire, TheBusinessDesk.com and Wales 247.
A report has to name the person in full and the employer by name, and the seat has to be an executive one: non-executive, board and chair appointments are left out, as are associate, assistant and deputy titles. One appointment is often reported several times, by several titles, with the role worded differently each time; reports of the same person within four months of each other are counted as one appointment, dated to the first report, with the role most of the reports agree on. Where the sweep plainly misread a report, a firm's name taken for a person's or an industry role taken for an appointment, the appointment is left out and the reason is recorded alongside the code that counts the index.
Functions are read from the role's title, with the same classification the Senior Hiring Index uses and one addition, chief executives and managing directors, because announcements are weighted towards the top seat in a way adverts are not. The kind of employer comes from a list of the employers the reports name; an employer not yet on it is shown as not classified rather than guessed at.
The first whole quarter is Q3 2026, July to September, so there is no like-for-like figure for the quarter before it. A quarter still running is compared with the same number of days of the quarter before, never with a whole one. The index counts announced appointments, not every move, and it does not split them into internal and external hires, because the reports name a previous employer too rarely to support it.
Behind most of these appointments is a seat left open
Every move on this page leaves a gap in the business the person left, and a good share of those gaps are filled by a search rather than an advert. I run retained searches for the seats counted here: Managing Directors, Commercial Directors, Operations Directors and the chief executives above them. The brief, the assessment and the salary band for each are set out under roles.
01What does the Construction Leadership Moves Index count?
Named senior executive appointments at UK construction and infrastructure employers, as reported in the UK construction trade press and the UK regional business press: chief executives, managing directors and the director and head-of seats in operations, commercial, pre-construction, technical, planning, safety, finance and people. Each appointment is counted once, in the quarter it was first reported, and broken down by function, by the employer making it and by the kind of employer that is.
02Is it every senior move in UK construction?
No. It counts the appointments the press reports, which are the ones employers choose to announce. Many senior moves are never announced, a promotion inside a business often goes unreported, and a report can follow the decision by weeks. The index is a consistent count of announced appointments, quarter on quarter, not a census of every move.
03How does it relate to the Senior Hiring Index?
The Senior Hiring Index counts the director seats employers advertise, every week. This index counts the seats they fill and announce, every quarter. Read together, one is the demand for leaders and the other is the supply reaching the top seats. Both use the same functions, so a quarter here sits alongside the months there.
04Which appointments are left out?
Non-executive, board and chair appointments, which are governance seats rather than executive ones; associate, assistant and deputy director titles; appointments outside the UK; a report that names a person only by surname or an employer only by description; and any report outside the publications listed in the methodology.
05Does it say how many seats went to insiders?
Not yet. The reports name the previous employer for only about one appointment in four, which is too few to say how many seats went to someone promoted from within and how many to someone hired in. I would rather leave the split out than print one built on a quarter of the data.
06How often is it published?
Each quarter gets its own edition, with the figures to download, once the quarter has ended. The first is Q3 2026, July to September, the first whole quarter the sweep covered. The quarter in progress is shown to date on this page.
07Can I use these figures?
Yes, with attribution to the Lechley Construction Leadership Moves Index and a link to this page or the edition you quote. For a cut by sector, region or employer, email scott@lechley.com.
Start a conversation
If one of the appointments on this page has left a seat open in your business, or if you are weighing a move into one of the employers here, I would welcome the chance to talk. No hard sell, no obligation.
The seats employers are advertising now are on the Senior Hiring Index. The appointments as they are announced, week by week, are on senior appointments in construction. What the seats pay is in the salary guide.
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