Open Doors 2024: Our seventh year inspiring construction enthusiasts

The week-long initiative, delivered by Build UK, aims to inspire, and engage prospective careers talent and educate on the wealth of opportunities available in the construction sector. It was also important to showcase the diversity of our industry, offering people of all different ages and backgrounds valuable career opportunities. 

According to Build UK, the construction industry needs to recruit almost 50,000 new entrants per year just to maintain current output, with staff shortages a major factor affecting the industry. Therefore, it is vital that we continue to play our part in spreading awareness of the invaluable opportunities on offer.

Attendees throughout the week varied from early careers talent to individuals considering a vocational change, all drawn by the exciting prospect of discovering what the industry has to offer.

Our Open Doors 2024 sites included a trio of London projects; 33 Old Broad Street, Millennium Bridge House and Collcutt House. There was also Meadow High School in Hillingdon, Two Bridges Academy in Thornbury, Station Leisure and Learning Centre project in Mablethorpe and the High Value Engineering (HiVE) facility in Ebbw Vale, Wales. Project teams welcomed visitors with a presentation to prospective careers talent, detailing insight into project delivery, a chance to learn more about the team and their backgrounds, and showcasing the apprentice, placement, and graduate schemes available at ISG.

Following the engaging presentations, visitors put on their PPE and embarked on site tours, learning about the development and progress of the buildings, with the opportunity to ask our team any questions they had.

Our involvement in the initiative was met with positive feedback from guests with one visitor at our 33 Old Broad Street tour highlighting:

This year we wanted to continue our efforts to demonstrate the importance of our roles that exist outside our sites but are equally important to successful project delivery. Aldgate House in London welcomed 60 year six students from Wellington Primary School to join interactive sessions hosted by our Estimating, Design and Proposals teams, where students broadened their understanding of the range of roles within the construction sector. 

Our Cardiff office hosted pupils from Woodlands High School, a local ALN school that serves students aged 11 to 19 with moderate to severe learning challenges and ASD. The pupils took part in three activities, BIM with Digital Construction Manager, Simon Roberts, Bids and proposals with Pre-Construction Director, Darren March and Senior Bid Manager, Huw Triggs, and a building session with Social Value Manager Harriet Wade and Sector Director for Education, Jane O’Leary. During the building session, students were tasked with a challenge to design a poster for their own construction company.

They were encouraged to incorporate a company logo, think about the type of buildings their company would create, and an organisational chart of the people who work in their company. The sessions across our offices were designed to inspire students to think about the construction industry as a viable career path when deciding their future. Our ISG Network of Women (I-NoW) were also in attendance across four of our sites and offices, speaking on the diversity of the sector and their own career journeys, revealing how hobbies and interests could lead to a role in construction.

An attendee from a local school, who attended our workshop at Aldgate House with their pupils, remarked: