The construction industry’s pioneering training course that creates careers for women, and those with BAME and challenged backgrounds, has successfully been adapted in a joint exercise with HS2 contractors at Old Oak Common.

The highly successful Construkt course, which was created and is run by social enterprise Serious About Youth (SAY) as a response to social inequality and high crime rates, was given an HS2 variation in conjunction with Expanded/Laing O’Rourke and BBVS Joint Venture (Balfour Beatty, Vinci and Systra). The week long exercise for more than 20 students from sixth forms and colleges from HS2 priority boroughs, Brent, Ealing and Hammersmite & Fulham, was able to utilise the onsite training rooms and other facilities being used by contractors at the Old Oak Common Station development.

Project managers working on the different disciplines being used on HS2, gave presentations that included design, civil engineering and mechanical engineering. Course members were also provided with tuition and hands on experience of using the Navisworks CAD design system to learn about Building Information Modelling (BIM). In addition, a mock tendering exercise was also run in which formal presentations were made to bid managers of contractors working on the rail development, who acted as judges.

The course finished with a celebratory networking event in which participants were able to meet and discuss career opportunities with representatives from HS2 contactors, and also those from Wates, Mulalley, McConnell Construction, Stantec (formerly Hydrock), Glenman, SRL acoustics and McLaren Group. The course included six females, and had an 80 per cent BAME ratio.

‘The fantastic support and involvement of the contractors at Old Oak Common enabled us to produce a highly engaging and educational variant of Construkt,’ says Serious About Youth co-founder Rommell Wallace. ‘Like all our courses, it will be the catalyst for another group of young people entering the construction industry, but we cannot do it without the support from the sector itself.’

One happy coincidence occurred during the programme when a Construkt course participant from last year was discovered to be working onsite for Balfour Beatty. The reunion with programme supervisors illustrated the practical success of Construkt, that sees 70 per cent of course members go on to find roles in the building industry, while at the same time making an impact on inclusivity.

The standard Construkt course takes participants through design principles and RIBA stages; Building Information Modelling (BIM); the bidding process and tender presentations; the employability skills needed to gain employment, and culminates in course members building a large scale timber structure based on a live construction project. The course also teaches course participants the life cycle of construction projects, and allows them to gain exposure to the different career pathways available. Additionally, the course prepares for find a job, writing a CV, professional social skills and interview skills, and job networking opportunities.

SAY is continually looking for contractors to partner with to deliver the Construkt programme, which is reliant on cooperation and funding from construction companies. It has also launched a Crowdfunding campaign to enable building companies to contribute directly to financially support training courses, and enable mentoring and work experience opportunities for those that have completed courses. More information on the Crowdfunding can be found via this link https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/say-construkt