The Lechley Brief
If you read these essays, you will like the Brief. My weekly email on leadership, talent and what is moving in UK construction and infrastructure, in your inbox every Saturday morning.
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Essays on leadership, hiring and careers in UK construction and infrastructure, and on the people who run its programmes.
Every downturn cuts training. The bill lands a decade later
Construction cuts trainees first in every downturn. The gap shows up a decade later in the senior seats nobody can fill. A hypothesis, and how we'll test it.
Construction management puts the client back in charge. Is the client ready?
A developer and a law firm say design and build has lost its edge on complex schemes. The contract argument is sound. The harder question is whether clients have the people to carry the risk that comes home.
The ten non-negotiables: a spec template for senior hires
The one-page spec I agree with every client before a name goes out: ten things you can evidence, five you would like, and the questions that test them.
Mace and Balfour Beatty hold 72 of 130 open senior roles. Week of 11 August 2026
130 senior construction vacancies are open right now, and 72 of them, well over half, sit with just two contractors: Mace and Balfour Beatty.
The Hard Hat and Graduation Gap
For the first time in a generation, a prime minister has said out loud what construction has been muttering for years.
The Great Water Reset: What Five New CEOs in Twelve Months Tells Us About Leadership in UK Water
Five UK water companies have changed chief executive inside a year. That is not coincidence, it is a sector resetting its leadership in the middle of AMP8.
The Ground Beneath Us: What a Land Value Tax Would Actually Do to Construction
Andy Burnham has backed a land value tax since 2010. He is now the likely next Prime Minister.
When to Leave: The Signals Senior Leaders Shouldn’t Ignore
Most senior professionals in UK construction stay in roles too long. Not always, but often enough that the pattern is worth talking about.
Interview Questions That Reveal Real Programme Leadership
One of the most expensive mistakes a senior professional can make in UK construction is joining a programme that turns out to be nothing like what was described at interview.
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