About Construction in Kent

Background

A lot of new construction activity is managed by a relatively small group of 'big-name' companies. This means that the industry has become increasingly subcontracted over the last 20 years. Recent research suggests that small construction firms (employing up to 10 people) now make up around 93% of all construction businesses in Kent and Medway. Self-employment is also common in the UK construction industry. Around 33,500 self-employed people work in construction in Kent and Medway, with more businesses starting up all the time, for example as the building repair and maintenance sector grows.

For more information about the construction workforce and sector-skills issues across Kent, please follow this link to the Learning and Skills Council for Kent and Medway

Our Role

At Kent County Council we are responsible for a wide range of planning and development issues in Kent and we are also a major client of the construction industry. We are responsible for delivering the largest ever school-building programme in the county. Our capital programme also includes:

• road and other major projects
• libraries
• new care centres
• community facilities
• site maintenance.

Together, this work adds up to a capital programme of over £2 billion over the next 10 years. We will be looking to use our role as a client of the construction industry to influence a wide range of key issues including:

• training
• local employment
• quality design
• employing people from under-represented groups including people from ethnic-minority backgrounds and women
• improving health and safety.

We are working alongside a wide range of organisations to make sure that the county gets the maximum benefit, both now and in the future. We are working with the construction industry to help make Kent a better place to live, work and visit.

For more information about doing business with us, and information on how we support local companies please see the procurement pages on our website

Making Kent a better place to be

Over the next 10 to 20 years, Kent will experience growth on a scale not seen before, which will bring over 100,000 new homes and new jobs to the county. We work with our partners to deliver major regeneration projects in the county. Our task is to make sure that all development in Kent results in safe and attractive places where people want to live and work. We hope to achieve this by concentrating on five main regeneration objectives.

• Good master-planning and innovative projects in towns and countryside.
• Improving local skills and creating jobs for local people.
• Arranging or getting funding for community facilities.
• Designs of outstanding quality.
• Major transport schemes.

Quite simply, our aim is to make Kent’s towns, villages and countryside more dynamic, more prosperous, more beautiful and more accessible to all.

For more information about the work of the Regeneration division and a map showing the range of regeneration activity in Kent, please read the publication
‘ Kent’s big picture’ (PDF 421kb 1.30mins)-this link will open in a new window.