This is a key time for our industry, but we must improve our practices to make the most of it

The past few weeks have seen the announcement of the comprehensive spending review, the launch of the 10-year infrastructure strategy, the new industrial strategy and the trade strategy, alongside a host of smaller announcements of project funding and progression.

Each of these has clearly been aligned by the government to drive its growth mission; supporting the delivery of 1.5 million new homes and a renewal of our national infrastructure.

They also build on a huge amount of new policy and investment that has been announced over the past 12 months – £600m of funding for construction skills, the planning and infrastructure bill, and the creation of National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA).

If we don’t improve our practices and drive a fresh focus on safer and healthier working conditions, we risk seeing many more people injured, killed or suffering from poor mental health

Never has there been a moment in my career where it was more obvious that the government has strongly recognised the key role our industry has to play in creating and sustaining economic growth and social value. And that should be celebrated – but we should also proceed with care, ensuring we have the right environment in which to deliver these commitments.

Last year, 51 people died working on construction sites within the UK – an increase on the year before – and more than two people in our industry died each day by suicide. That is unacceptable, as I’m sure you agree.

And so, when we look towards a brighter future for construction, we must recognise that it comes with danger – a danger that, if we don’t improve our practices and drive a fresh focus on safer and healthier working conditions, we risk seeing many more people injured, killed or suffering from poor mental health.

If we don’t improve, we risk letting a moment of potentially profound change for our industry become a missed opportunity for improving how we work. The time for change is now.

Today, more than 150 leaders from the construction industry will gather at the first Construction Leadership Council health and wellbeing summit, led by our Construction minister Sarah Jones MP, to launch the CLC’s new health, safety and wellbeing strategy.

We are bringing together leaders from across the sector – from contractors, consultants, designers, specialists, trade bodies, to government bodies and clients – in order to test and discuss the strategy. Our aim is to work together to move the dial at this critical juncture, driving cultural change.

We have seen huge progress over the past few decades, but recently that progress has stalled

In our industry convening role, we want to support people to recognise the real performance of the sector and commit to convening and investing to drive improvement, learning from other industries and adopting new approaches.

We have seen huge progress over the past few decades, but recently that progress has stalled. The vast majority of people in the sector are striving to make our industry as safe and healthy as possible; and yet unsafe working practices remain.

There are pockets of brilliance, but we aren’t moving fast enough, and our ambition as an industry must be higher.

You’ll hopefully see our strategy recognises much of the great work already taking place.

Our intention is not to try and replace or refute that work – we want to leverage the convening power of the CLC and the leaders we have bought together at the summit to deliver change faster and more effectively.

We will do so by better data management – monitoring industry-wide health and safety performance data to give us an understanding of the sector’s performance, enabling us to track and challenge our performance.

We will significantly enhance co-ordinated communication between the CLC health and safety working group and other key industry groups to provide better support and provide clarity on key issues/direction, as well as considering other methods to capture our impacts, such as via surveys and broader communications opportunities.

On mental health engagement alone, we will shortly be organising a series of briefing sessions – for interested organisations to attend – to take forward our work in this space. The summit and the new strategy is the beginning of the story, rather than the end.

We want to keep reviewing and refreshing, building on the brilliant work already being done and make our industry-wide conversation richer and more likely to produce tangible outcomes for everyone who works in construction – from the top to the bottom.

We will be publishing a summary of today’s conference to keep the momentum going, and will be organising a LinkedIn group to stimulate debate and drive and coordinate communications on this key topic.

Early 2026 will see the publication of a new CLC code of practice, from our mental health group, providing businesses with clear guidance on how they can better create a supportive mental health environment for their employees.

So, I would ask everyone to read the new strategy; engage with the brilliant team working to support it at the CLC, and consider how you and your organisation could help us contribute to a transformation of culture, practice and policy across the sector.

If you would like to get involved, please contact Stuart.Young@businessandtrade.gov.uk.

Mark Reynolds is executive chair at Mace and co-chair at the Construction Leadership Council