Highlights and insights from the Digital Construction Week 2022  

  • Education
3 minute(s) read

Over 5,500 professionals from around the globe attended the Digital Construction Week held last week on 18th and 19th May in London. An impressive line-up of 300 experts, insightful talks and thought provoking content made the event a huge success and worthwhile to attend!  Interactive demos and latest digital solutions were showcased revealing the latest innovations impacting the construction ecosystem.

The Site Diary team would like to thank our clients and prospects who visited us on our stand. For those who could not make it, we would like to share highlights and insights from the digital construction week.

The construction industry will be a locomotive for post covid growth

We learnt that governments and companies globally are recognising construction as a critical engine for post-pandemic growth. Post pandemic, workplace safety will be a high priority for construction companies. This will require major organisational changes, new procedures, overhauled processes and most importantly easy-to-use digital tools. A combination of sustainability requirements, cost pressure, skills scarcity, new materials, industrial approaches and digitalization ae set to transform the construction value chain.

In other words, the construction ecosystem won’t be the same and has to adapt to the new normal. And this will have a huge impact on the world economy as the construction ecosystem represents 13 percent of global GDP.

 

A scarcity of skills and lack of inclusivity in the construction sector

Post pandemic, the great resignation is also at the doorsteps of the construction industry. Covid has motivated employees to revaluate their work-life balance and they are opting for professions that will grant them more time with family and offer some balance. The construction industry is not only grappling with large amounts of resignation but also a lack of interest by younger generations. And as baby boomer continue to retire, it is not easy to find suitable replacements.

Inclusivity is also another major challenge. Unfortunately women make a small percentage of the construction workforce. Creating safe work environments, providing equal opportunities and promotion of construction as a lucrative and fulfilling career is even more pertinent today and should be a priority.

Mental Health – a taboo in the construction industry

Did you know, currently suicide kills six times as many construction workers than falls from height ? The long pandemic and the confinement or lockdowns that ensued opened a pandora’s box of mental health issues irrespective of personal background and industry ! In the UK alone the construction industry sees a suicide rate three times more than the national average.

Leading psychologist Dr Vanessa Moulton gave an insightful talk titled – optimising prevention strategies for mental health in construction. She spoke about Mind Fitness and how it can help entire workforces within the construction industry build and maintain strong psychological fitness and wellbeing.

Due to the scarcity of talent and skills in the construction sector, mental health of employees is even more important.

Digitalisation will propel the construction industry ahead

One of the major themes was digital transformation of the construction sector. There was a clear consensus that digitalisation can transform performance, delivery and productivity across the construction sector for the better. There were a lot of presentations and case studies that showcased how digital tools and data-backed approaches to construction can improve productivity and quality of the buildings.

Another insight we got by attending talks and meeting prospects and clients is that many people are frustrated with the technologies they have because the people on construction sites don’t use it. Mostly because of difficult user interface and cumbersome features that don’t get the work done. On top of that there are too many technologies without any streamlined data. So it creates more work for the people working in the office.

That is why we build Site Diary, a simple to use and powerful digital diary for your construction activities. Site Diary connects your team’s day-to-day construction activities to the long-term vision of your construction project. It brings clarity to the chaotic world of a construction site.

Thanks to the positive feedback we received from our happy customers, during the Digital Construction Week we launched a brand new product – Site Task. It allows to schedule your construction tasks and monitor their execution. With Site Task you can create, assign and track your construction site tasks to deliver your construction projects successfully. Download Site Task now. It is free for the moment, but not for long !

Hope these key takeaways from the digital construction week will give you some perspective about the direction taken by the construction industry post pandemic. Stay tuned on our blog for the latest trends and best practices in the construction sector.