Key opportunities at London Olympics

With major construction contracts for the London Olympics 2012 coming up for grabs in coming 18 months it is no surprise that companies chasing these contracts are leaving no stone unturned in their search for the right candidates to fill construction professional jobs and construction trade jobs.

It is estimated that 12,000 new jobs will be created in the Olympic Park alone, of which 7,000 are in the construction sector.

From an Irish perspective many companies have expressed a clear interest in exporting their expertise. Enterprises Ireland reports that about 70 Irish companies are actively seeking Olympic contracts.

For job seekers looking for construction jobs on the London Olympics site, a quick browse through the UK construction jobs section of constructionjobs.ie will show the ever-growing number of job opportunities that are coming up daily.

One recruitment consultant says an Irish based construction professional job candidate with the right experience can expect to earn the equivalent sterling value in salary package that they have been earning in Ireland over the past few years. That is an increase of about 25 per cent. In addition, if a company finds the right candidate they would most likely be offering additional benefits and assistance with the move to London.

The range of Olympic Games projects that will be on offer over the coming 12 months cover many sectors and levels of work. In fact, it is difficult to identify sectors that will not be affected by the Games.
Key areas of activity include:

• Construction of facilities;
• IT/communications infrastructure;
• Security planning;
• Tourism;
• Media and publicity;
• Cultural programming;
• Sports events and management and;
• Transport and traffic management.

Enterprise Ireland has identified a number of direct and indirect Olympic contract opportunities that it says Irish companies are well placed to deliver
These include:

• Specialist contractors/subcontractors in land remediation, Mechanical & Electrical, Energy/Environment. Companies operating in these areas are likely to benefit from the Olympics and associated work right up until 2011/2012
• Material and product suppliers will see opportunities beginning to arise in earnest at the end of 2008 and these will follow through to late 2011.
• Offsite/Modern Methods of Construction technologies will dominate the building programme for the Olympic Village and all the associated accommodation developments (residential – private and public and hotels). Irish companies with strong, innovative technologies are likely to do well and a few key players are expected to win contracts closer to the time.
• Companies operating in the materials handling/off-highway sectors will see an increase in demand related to the major infrastructure work due to take place in the coming years.

In the area of software and services, opportunities can be grouped into the following:

• Supporting the objective of the key local authorities and related bodies.
• Software for the railway/transport infrastructure industry
• Hotel solutions for hotel/accommodation providers
• Transaction and/or security related software
• Direct tenders from the Olympics Delivery Authority and other bodies
• Working as a sub contractor to the main IT suppliers, including Atos Origin (and potentially GE, Kodak, Lenovo, Omega, Panasonic, Samsung and Visa.

Consumer sector opportunities are mainly focused around the running of the Games. Enterprise Ireland identified the following contract opportunities:

• Food and beverages
• Clothing and merchandising
• Manufacture of furniture, textiles and associated soft furnishings for the hospitality sector.