Wednesday Market Insights: Investment Is Creating Opportunity. Who Will Deliver It?
The Read
Across the built environment, attention is increasingly shifting from what could be built to what can actually be delivered.
A year on from the launch of The Great North, the North's investment proposition has moved forward considerably. Investment-ready opportunities are now being presented collectively through The Great North Investment Prospectus, the region has held its first pan-Northern Investment Summit, and NatWest has committed £20bn of funding to the North over the next decade.
But growing pipelines bring a second challenge: having enough of the right people to deliver them.
We're already seeing what that can look like in Project Planning. Employers are competing for a relatively small pool of experienced Planners, while fewer people are being developed into the profession.
The common thread this week is therefore not simply a shortage of talent.
It's whether the industry's skills base is developing quickly enough to keep pace with its ambitions.
The Signal: The North is moving from investment proposition to delivery
Twelve months after The Great North launched, there is more substance behind the proposition.
The Great North Investment Prospectus now brings together investment-ready opportunities across all eight Industrial Strategy sectors, including York Central and Leeds regeneration, the Don Valley Corridor, Atom Valley and the East Coast Cluster.
The North has also pitched collectively to sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors through its first pan-Northern Investment Summit, while the Northern economy is now being presented at £466bn.
The takeaway: As investment moves closer to delivery, access to planning, construction, infrastructure and specialist development expertise becomes an increasingly important part of the story.
What it means for talent: For professionals across the built environment, growing regional investment could broaden the range of projects, employers and career opportunities available across the North. Skills connected to major development, infrastructure, energy and regeneration programmes could become particularly valuable.
What it means for hiring managers: Workforce planning needs to happen alongside investment planning. Waiting until projects reach delivery before identifying skills requirements risks putting employers into competition for the same specialists at the same time.
The Signal: Planning's talent shortage may actually be a pipeline problem
Cobalt's Luke Kinsey is seeing a recurring problem in Project Planning: everyone is looking for the same people.
Experienced Planners who understand the sector, know Asta or Primavera and can take responsibility for a programme immediately are in high demand. But continually competing for that existing population doesn't create more Planners.
CITB forecasts construction will need around 206,000 additional workers between 2026 and 2030. Luke argues that part of the answer could already be working elsewhere in the industry.
Civil Engineers, Site Engineers and Construction Managers can bring valuable knowledge of sequencing, logistics and project delivery. With the right training and support, some could become the next generation of Planners.
Cobalt has recently helped two Civil Engineers make exactly that transition into planning roles with a major infrastructure consultancy.
The takeaway: The industry's skills gap isn't always about a lack of capable people. In some areas, there aren't enough routes for people with transferable skills to move into the roles where they're needed.
What it means for talent: Your current job title doesn't necessarily define your next move. Practical project knowledge, commercial understanding and transferable technical skills can create opportunities in adjacent disciplines, even where you haven't previously held the exact title.
What it means for hiring managers: Before increasing salary or waiting longer for the 'perfect' CV, reconsider the brief. Which requirements genuinely need to be present on day one, and which can be developed? A wider definition of relevant experience could unlock talent that conventional searches miss.
Read Luke Kinsey's full insight → Why Your Planning Shortlist Only Has Two Names On It
So, who will deliver the opportunity?
The answer cannot be the same limited pool of experienced talent moving between employers.
As investment and project pipelines grow, the talent pipeline has to grow with them. That means identifying skills requirements earlier, widening where businesses look for talent, recognising transferable experience and creating clearer routes for people to develop into the roles the industry will need next.
For talent, that creates opportunity beyond the boundaries of a current job title. For hiring managers, it means thinking about workforce strategy before a skills shortage becomes a delivery problem.
Investment creates the opportunity. Building the talent pipeline is what turns it into delivery.
That's also why understanding where those gaps exist matters. Through Map the Gap, our work with BE News is examining where skills shortages are emerging across the built environment, what's driving them and where employers and professionals are feeling the greatest pressure.
From the Desk
This October marks 25 years of Cobalt.
Since being founded in London in 2001, we've seen the built environment move through multiple market cycles, changing skills requirements, new technologies and significant shifts in where and how investment happens.
Cobalt has evolved alongside it, expanding from London into Manchester, Germany and the US, while continuing to specialise in the markets and professions shaping the built environment.
Over the coming weeks, we'll be looking back at some of the moments that have shaped those 25 years, hearing from people across the business and, importantly, looking ahead at what the next chapter means for our markets.
Thank you to our contributors: Luke Kinsey — Executive Consultant, Construction Una McGuinness — Fractional Chief Marketing Officer Maria Sinclair — Managing Director, UK
