Around 200,000 people, or one in every 145 working adults, now hold a NEBOSH qualification in Britain, it has been revealed this week.

200,000 is a lot of people. It’s the same as the population of some of Britain’s cities, such as York, Aberdeen, Portsmouth or Milton Keynes.

The National Construction College (NCC) - Europe’s largest construction training provider - has been working with industry to develop a Solar Panel Installation and NVQ course, to help roofing practitioners upskill so they can maximise on the opportunities being created by initiatives such as the government’s Green Deal.

The Southern regional heat of this year's SkillBuild, the UK's biggest construction skills competition, is to be hosted by Highbury College on 22nd May, it has been announced today.

Next month sees the bringing together of the two biggest buzzwords in construction in the UK since – well, since ‘Wren’ and ‘Great Fire’. I am, of course, referring to Ecobuild, the showcase of everything there is in sustainable construction. This year the three days will reflect the upcoming London 2012, flagged as the “greenest Olympics ever”. There is a whole seminar and conference programme devoted to the delivery of sustainability in the build programme and the learning legacy. Ecobuild is an Olympics learning legacy partner and as such playing its part by delivering presentations by many of the major players from ODA and LOGOC.

What follows the Games is, of course, crucial to whether London 2012 is seen as a green triumph or a white elephant. On a much smaller scale, much of what was anticipated in Manchester has gone by the board following the banking crisis and change of government. Not only has the stadium become an advert for an Arab airline (one of the first things to go was the running track), the housing regeneration has fallen victim to the cancelling of schemes such as Pathfinder, leaving streets half-demolished and homes sometimes in a worse state than they were to begin with.

A self-employed roofer from Leeds in Yorkshire has won gold in the young roofer section of the International Federation of Roofing Contractors World Championships.

Matthew Timby was awarded the medal and world championship title at Leeds College of Building’s annual awards ceremony; and the apprentice-turned-successful roofer was presented the award by Jarrod Best, the managing director of Leeds-based GMI Construction.

A house which is able to rise with the water level will be built on the banks of the Thames later this year, while the planning permission granted sets a precent for new properties built in areas prone to flooding.

Planning permission has been granted to build the UK's first amphibious house. Once built, it will rest on the ground on fixed foundations but whenever a flood occurs the entire building will rise up in its dock and float, buoyed by the floodwater.

The design will use the latest technology and is a major breakthrough for British architects and engineers who have been searching for many years for a solution to mitigate the risk and damage of water entering homes in flood-prone areas.

A drive to encourage firms to create 500 construction sector apprenticeships in Greater Manchester over the next three years was unveiled today. Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce took the wraps off its new Construction Group Training Association which it has set up with local authority and industry representatives.

Greenbuild Expo 2012 returns to Manchester with a stellar line up of speakers and exhibitors ahead of the Green Deal launch

Greenbuild Expo 2012, the largest sustainable refurbishment and building event in the North of England, returns to Manchester Central in May (9-10) with a whole host of exhibitors, speakers and a Green Deal debate arena.

There is some up-beat news to be seen on this site for the construction industry in the East of England which is forecast to be at the top of the growth table of the 12 regions/devolved nations for the period to 2016, according to the latest forecast from the Construction Skills Network. The growth rate for the region during that period is forecast to be 2.9%, more than double the national average, with the industrial sector notching up a staggering 13.5% and private housing 5.6%.

The East is one of five regions/devolved nations to be tipped to outperform the average, with the North West and the West Midlands forecast to continue their decline in output.

One of the drivers of construction growth in the region, according to the report, will be based around carbon reduction efforts.
The report says: "Increased concern over carbon emission reduction targets, along with rising energy costs, is likely to increase levels of retrofitting, energy efficiency measures and microgeneration technologies, which will become increasingly important in driving construction growth in the region over the longer term."

The number of graduate jobs in construction looks set to increase by nearly 30% this year, according to the latest survey by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), their Winter 2011 review. This increase of 29.4% reverses the findings of the AGR’s two previous reviews, where the number of vacancies were predicted to decline. The rise has been put down to international expansion and expected growth in areas such as nuclear power. To counterbalance this, however, construction companies and consultancies are said to be cutting their graduate salaries by 1.1%.