The construction colleges’ job fair season got off to a start recently with a number of events taking place in Institutes of Technology across the country. And the constructionjobs.ie team was on hand in Limerick and Dublin to gauge the mood among companies recruiting and construction students.
At Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT), the School of the Built Environment held its annual recruitment fair on 24 January. This year’s was the biggest to date, with 70 companies and 400 students in attendance. In addition to Irish and UK companies looking to bolster their teams constructionjobs.ie noted there was also a strong attendance of companies from Canada, Hong Kong and the Middle East.
Many of the students who visited the constructionjobs.ie stand expressed an interest in opportunities abroad as well as trying to identify employers who could provide them with appropriate experience as well as the possibility of a long-term sustainable career.
On 6 February the constructionjobs.ie team was at Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) Bolton Street for the Quantity Surveying Recruitment Event, which was held by the School of Real Estate and Construction Economics. Again, the level of interest in job opportunities abroad was high, with the London Olympics 2012 roll-out programme, opportunities in the Middle East and Canada all being major talking points.
London 2012
Unlike the dark days of the 70s and 80s, graduates seeking work abroad can find themselves being offered very lucrative salary packages.
With the London 2012 picking up momentum, one Irish recruiter calculates that with the right experience a construction professional can currently earn 33 per cent more in London than their salaries would be in Dublin. He says: “In London, an experienced construction professional can expect to be paid the same salary figure in sterling that they could earn in Dublin”. Further to this, companies operating in the Middle East, North America and Africa are also competing to attract the cream of Irish graduates.
Opportunities in Ireland
But before you book your flight ticket, Ireland should not be overlooked as there are many big plans on the horizon across the country. None of which appear to be affected by the current recent change in appetite in the Irish property market.
In Limerick, the regeneration of the troubled Moyross, Southill and Ballinacurra Weston areas of the city envisages a new scheme of iconic developments, which will include cluster development of 4,500 new homes with extensive supporting infrastructure.
Just down the road, Clare County Council has just unveiled plans for a new €400 million Shannon Town Centre, which if approved will provide an estimated 1,000 new jobs. In fact many towns across the country are looking to redefine their urban centres and ample opportunities exist to get in on the ground floor.
Two of the most exciting upcoming urban regeneration and development schemes in Ireland are to be found on North Dublin’s Inner City.
The Local Area Plan for the redevelopment of Phibsboro goes to public consultation at the end of February and provisions in the plan could see a luxury hotel or third level college being built on the current site of Mountjoy Prison, as well as a cluster of feature tall buildings dotted across the area’s skyline.
Adjacent to Phibsboro, work has also started on the master plan for the DIT/HSE 75-acre Grangegorman campus, which management of the Grangegorman Development Agency tell constructionjobs.ie will go to planning early next year, start construction before the end of 2009, and be practically completed in 2012. The resulting development will be the largest educational scheme built in Ireland since the foundation of the Irish State and it will probably be the largest urban student campus to be attempted in Europe for many years to come. When completed approximately €1.5billion will have been spent to bring over 25,000 students to the locale. With numerous other schemes planned for Dublin’s North Inner City, as well a Luas extension and the new Metro North line to Dublin Airport, the opportunities to gain valuable graduate experience and build a career would appear endless. Further to this Castlethorn Developments recently submitted a planning application for its €1.2billion Adamstown Central town centre.
So the challenge for construction graduates is not finding work but how to get in on the ground floor of the right development with the right company!
The constructionjobs.ie team will next host a stand at
The Construction Careers Event 2008
The Royal Horticultural Society
Lindley Hall
Westminster
England
27 February
Your opinion
We welcome any comments you may have on the challenges of starting a career or opportunities to gain valuable on site experience.
We would also like to know:
Are colleges and industry doing enough to prepare graduates for the first step into the construction jobs market?
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
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