Festival of Construction

Help us celebrate!

The Festival of Construction is our new virtual construction careers conference for 2021, and this year we will be exploring the future of construction careers in the light of the climate crisis. Our event will mirror the themes of the 2021 COP26 Climate Change conference, and we’ll be looking at the ways that young people can join an industry at the cutting edge of climate impact and responsibility.

The Event Outline

The Festival of Construction is an online construction careers conference, based around the themes of the COP26 Climate Change conference (which is due to take place in Glasgow in November 2021).

MONDAY 10th – Adaptation and Resilience

The climate emergency is shaping how the built environment needs to be planned and designed to prevent and survive climate impacts, i.e. floods, wildfires, extreme weather, materials shortage, population displacement

TUESDAY 11th – Nature

Our speakers will be discussing some built environment solutions and technologies for protecting ecosystems, ensuring biodiversity, expanding food supply to growing populations while committing to wildlife protections

WEDNESDAY 12th – Energy Transition

Clean and renewable energies are essential to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, including the retrofit and integration of renewable technology, adoption schemes to encourage the public, waste management and energy from waste

THURSDAY 13th – Clean transport

Keeping our towns and cities moving is vital for healthy economies and zero-emissions vehicles will certainly reduce carbon emissions, smart cities use the Internet of Things for realtime traffic data, active transport keeps us healthier, 15-minute cities in a post-COVID world reduce the burden of commuting, and logistics and freight bring us eseential goods and services

FRIDAY 14th – Finance

The construction industry makes up 7% of UK GDP and investment in property and construction is always lucrative, financial incentives help inspire and ensure that future developments prioritise climate actions, sustainable procurement and corporate social responsibility are essential for a healthy industry, and creating tools to value the built environment as a social asset

Student Development Activities

In addition, there will be activities not tied to specific days including confidence coaching, CV writing, mentoring, apprentice/graduate panels, mock interview sessions, and introductions to FE and HE.

Information for Schools

Attendance is free for all teachers, careers leaders and full-time students. There is no limit to the amount of sessions you can attend (though some may be first come, first served).

For safeguarding, we understand that you may prefer to allow your students to participate anonymously (without sharing cameras or microphones) and we are designing the core of the talks with this in mind. We are planning to introduce breakout groups across the week where you can directly supervise your students as they participate more actively in small groups.

This event is designed to meet the following Gatsby benchmarks:

  • Benchmark 2 – learning from career & labour market information
  • Benchmark 4 – linking curriculum learning to careers
  • Benchmark 5 – encounters with employers and employees
  • Benchmark 7 – encounters with further and higher education
  • Benchmark 8 – personal guidance (in the form of mentoring, CV writing, coaching etc.)

We will be providing posters, infographics, lesson plans, conference material and job profiles in the run-up to the event. Please pre-register to ensure you receive these.

The core audience we are creating for are Key Stage 4 and 5 (ages 13 to 18, approximately), though there is no upper age limit. Please ensure that you have the appropriate safeguarding measures in place if you are inviting younger students.

Information for Employers

To cover the cost of hosting and delivering this event, we will make a nominal charge for tickets for representatives from industry, including apprentices. Your ticket will cover you for the whole event.

There are plenty of ways for organisations and employers to participate in the conference – as speakers, sponsors, breakout hosts, marketplace postings, mentors, etc. – and many of these opportunities will include free tickets. Please pre-register to receive more information.

Regional Ambassadors

Although this event is likely to be significantly or exclusively online due to COVID restrictions, we are very keen to support the local relationships between education and construction. As part of each LEP area’s Strategic Economic Plan and the labour market  information therein, we are looking for regional volunteers with strong industry networks to help us tell consistent local stories to students.

Please pre-register your interest in the first instance.

The COP26 Conference

The UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on 1 – 12 November 2021.

The COP26 summit will bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The UK is committed to working with all countries and joining forces with civil society, companies and people on the frontline of climate change to inspire climate action ahead of COP26.