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This flexibility of the contract workforce has made them essential to delivering the UK's built environment projects. But attracting and retaining these specialist is becoming more difficult than ever; particularly as the required skills are so difficult to come by, meaning hiring managers have to work harder than ever to help their organisations set themselves apart from the competition.

Why have we created this report?

We set out to do this report, combining the views of contractors with the hiring managers who recruit them, to understand this issue from both sides. The result is a clear snapshot, across five key sectors - highways, rail, property & housing, town planning and water - which shows us:

• - What contractors are looking for from their employers

• - Staff shortages are already hitting delivery - with 70% of hiring managers saying this has been a cause of significant delays

- Leadership skills rival technical skills as the hardest to find; 60% of contractors manage people, but 80% receive no leadership or management training

• - A succession gap is forming - with an ageing workforce and small pipeline of early to mid-career talent, creating a future risk which hiring managers need to work now to avoid