Digital construction: drive the future, achieve your dream
Digital construction is the discipline that will drive the wider sector and enable people from all walks of life to fulfil their dreams. That was one of the key messages from the keynote panel at Digital Construction North today (19 November).

Dr Claire Handby, a management consultant with 25 years’ experience in the industry and a Digital Construction Awards judge, said: “There is a space for anybody in digital construction. I’ve never seen the industry so much more focused on what you do on the inside. It’s what you understand about your skills, your qualifications, your attitude and how you get on the front foot to understand the opportunities that are here. You can realise your dreams within this sector, and I do not say that easily. It is very exciting. It’s transformational. It’s a moment for a generation.”
Dr Ben Jowett, head of digital transformation at SES Engineering Services, emphasised how digital construction’s diversity will help to break down the wider industry’s traditional siloes. He said: “One of the things that we continuously talk about within our business, which is relevant to the whole industry, is that the skills that we’re going to need for the future don’t really exist off the shelf.
“And that’s kind of reflected in how we’re approaching our digital team within SES: two-thirds of the team have come through organic retention and pivoting from a different background – design management or commercial management, for example. We’re 50% male, 50% female as a team, and really well balanced in terms of diversity and inclusion. And that is because the career in digital is a meaningful one; it doesn’t really have boundaries, and people are going to have to become multifunctional and operate horizontally across businesses, rather than being vertical specialists.
“You look at most of the curriculum that’s geared up to support industry at the moment: it’s very vertical and siloed – you’re trying to be a QS, you’re trying to be a design manager, you’re trying to be a site manager. Through digital, those boundaries will be eroded. That’s the future that we’re anticipating.”
Digital and diversity: driving change
Jane Goodman, sustainability consultant at iDEA, highlighted diversity’s role. “We need a lot of diversity to get innovation in the digital space,” she said. “We took on an apprentice who didn’t leave school because he used to game at home, and he’s one of our best developers now. We can progress all kinds of people from different backgrounds.”
Dr Mohamad Kassem, professor of digital construction management at Newcastle University, echoed the theme of digital cutting across traditional disciplines and roles. “We don’t need to create a digital construction degree. You can still have civil engineering degrees and so on. But these [digital] skills will become a default. Every graduate will have IT and AI digital skills. Digital construction will become mainstream.”
Dr Handy noted that while senior management teams across construction aren’t yet as diverse as digital construction, the normalising of digital skills could drive a bottom-up change. She said: “There needs to be more diversity at the top level of companies. There really does. That is what digital construction will help to transform, because your future CEOs are potentially your technology-led CEOs, and not necessarily from doing the foundations of building sites and working their way up. The way that you progress to the top of these businesses will be very different to how people have got there in the past. And it will not take as long as well, because the pace of change demands younger leaders or a more diverse type of leader.”
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