Neurospiciness: at home in construction

A 2025 Chartered Institute of Building article stated: “Construction has one of the highest concentrations of ADHD in the workforce. It drives creativity, problem-solving, and pace. But when unrecognised, it can fuel burnout, safety incidents, poor retention, and tragically, even suicide. Common traits include:

This is my brother. And much to my chagrin, without any letters after his name, he earns around the same as I do, but has had none of the student debt.

While our mum is proud of him, she worries that he is trying to impress the teachers who berated him in his formative years.

He is not alone in trying to prove himself to people who were emotionally violent to him when they should have been helping him to learn. The author Phillippa Perry (a fellow dyslexic) has written about the shame she felt as a result of teachers’ labels, noting that when she succeeded, she “…wanted to show my now dead elementary school teachers that maybe I was just a tiny bit bright”.

When discussing this with a friend (a mechanical engineer), he told me of an illiterate man who made incredible windows and doors. All he needed was help with numbers.

If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

In my opinion, construction gives a home to many people who have been judged by metrics that do not work in their favour during their formative years.

Within the world of designers, technicians and the digital construction community, there are many of us who are a different flavour of neurospicy to those working in the trades.

A former flatmate worked out that I may be autistic when I spent the best part of a weekend programming an Arduino to water my plants when we were going on holiday. Instead of simply asking the friendly neighbour (a botanist) to lean over the shared balcony, I elected to basically create a robot. It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask, because I would rather wire up a device than have an awkward conversation.

At the Digital Construction Awards last week (18 March), I realised there are many other people like me working for designers and contractors: however, we tend to work behind the scenes and avoid manual labour.

We typically enjoy focusing on digital problem-solving, tend to prefer logical systems to people. Those working in the information management sector have great attention to detail, pattern recognition abilities, and we enjoy organising things. I feel peaceful when I have helped coordinate models and know people like my brother can work efficiently. Digitally rehearsing projects makes me feel like I am keeping people like my brother safer.

We also have a strong sense of justice. I was once extremely unhappy that a colleague wanted me to help present something to a client with inconsistent graphics and typefaces. I started seeing a therapist after I realised I was much more upset about this than was perhaps healthy, having bitten through a dental retainer in my sleep.

Before getting help, I found myself mirroring a lot at work to survive, and coming home exhausted. If you ever played Tekken 3, I thought about myself as Mokujin, a sentient oak-tree robot who mimicked the skills of other fighters. Akin to Mokujin, every day was a fight, and I’d also find myself button-bashing to figure out who I was that day before being able to succeed.

Despite being the best event in the digital construction calendar, I often find myself taking time out after the Digital Construction Awards the next day after work, as my social battery runs out. And I know I am not the only one.

If I could give my younger self advice about coping with neurodivergence, I’d start with this: take your mental health seriously. Just because your brain can lock onto a problem like a laser doesn’t mean it’s good for you to let it. Intensity isn’t sustainable in the long term. You deserve routines, boundaries and support that help you thrive rather than burn out. If you do not take a break, your body may take one for you.

I write this anonymously because it’s better for my mental health to not have conversations about my neurospiciness; my observant colleagues already know.

Similarly, sleep is not optional. It’s foundational. Dr Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep makes it painfully clear how deeply sleep affects memory, emotional regulation, creativity and long‑term health. Those all‑nighters you can pull because you can hyperfocus aren’t a superpower. Rest is part of the work.

If I were to give my brother advice, shame from childhood trauma is corrosive. Dr Brené Brown’s research shows shame shuts down curiosity, connection and growth. The shame that I know he feels from teachers is difficult to overcome, but he shouldn’t take criticism from people whom he wouldn’t take advice from.

If I could sum it up for my younger self: your mind is different, not defective. Treat it with respect, and treat your time and energy like a precious commodity.

If your workplace is unwilling to provide reasonable accommodations, vote with your feet, as there are others who will.

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