A partnership that’s laying the foundations of East Midlands’ future construction priorities

Since 2018, Nottingham Trent University and Morgan Sindall Construction have worked in partnership to develop the East Midlands’ future construction workforce. 

During this time, NTU students have benefitted from the support of Morgan Sindall Construction through placements, graduate opportunities, mock assessment sessions and career mentoring programmes. 

On the 27th March 2023, on the eve of their five-year partnership, leaders from both businesses came together in a round table event to specifically review four areas of activity and identify opportunities to collaborate on deeper and more detailed areas, including:

• Carbon and environment
• Biodiversity
• Data
• Management, skills and employability

Whilst the Stepping Stone programme for students will remain in place, it is within these four themes that the team will look to widen the impact of the partnership beyond nurturing the next generation of talent.

Twenty-five experts joined the session to delve deep into each of the four topics and lay out a set of strategic priorities that would be prioritised for the partnership going forward. These included the use of carbon calculation software, joint initiatives on biodiversity projects, recruitment “touchpoint” ideas, data management and visualisation development strategy.

A list of proposed priorities have been set against each of the four areas and are now being placed within a framework of priorities for the collaborative group to move forward.

Sean Bowles, Morgan Sindall Construction’s Managing Director in the region, said:

“Working in partnership with NTU has been rewarding for both establishments over the last five years – we have some fantastic talent that has come directly into employment through the programme and that’s great to see. Whilst this foundation still matters to us, it’s important that we look at the next steps and widen the impact we can make together beyond the building a future-fit workforce. Creating positive impact on the environment, improving biodiversity and harnessing our data are key areas we know we can collaborate on, so I’m really excited for the next steps in the partnership.”

Andrew Knight, Executive Dean for the School of Architecture Design and the Built Environment at NTU said:

“The last five years have proved the power of partnerships; we now see the placements and opportunities happen by osmosis – they’re firmly embedded into each business, and our students will continue to benefit from that. But we don’t want to stand still, and this workshop marks the next phase of our relationships where we can collaborate on other important topics such as sustainability, biodiversity, data and management, skills and opportunity.”