Construction Workers

If you interests lie more with workers in the industry, then you could focus on this for your dissertation. This could make for a very interesting topic and there are lots of different avenues you could explore! Take a look at some examples below:

Example construction workers dissertation topic 1:

Addressing the domestic skills shortage within the UK construction industry.

Faced with a domestic skill shortage, particularly within traditional trades such as stonemasonry and thatching, the UK construction industry has, over the last decade, been increasingly reliant upon foreign migrant workers to fill other, more generalised construction jobs. This paper addresses this issue within the context of the present changes to the aged fourteen to nineteen education curriculum and the government’s intention that within two years all sixteen to eighteen year olds will be engaged in either full time education or training. In so doing it first notes how practical skills-based subjects have been educationally side-lined since the demise of the secondary modern and thereafter argues that the introduction of construction skills as a compulsory stand-alone qualification within the secondary curriculum would not only ameliorate shortages but also reinvigorate respect for traditional modes of work.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Chan, P.W. and Dainty, A.J.R. (2007). ‘Resolving the UK construction skills crisis: A critical perspective on the research and policy agenda’, Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 25(4), pp. 375-386.
• Chan, P.W., Clarke, L. and Dainty, A.J.R. (2010). The dynamics of migrant employment in construction: Can supply of skilled labour ever match demand? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Clarke, L., McGuire, C. and Wall, C. (2012). ‘The development of building labour in Britain in the twentieth century: Is it distinct from elsewhere in Europe?’. In, Dainty, A.J.R. and Loosemore, M., Human resource management in construction: Critical perspectives. London: Routledge.