THE opening of a new London office has put Russell Taylor Group at the heart of an impending surge in the capital’s large scale construction programme.

Despite a challenging year for the construction industry, London is once again beginning to experience a boom in the growth of office space along with multi-million pound build projects for new homes.

Rob Kurton, managing director at Russell Taylor Group who is based at the company’s national headquarters in Bromborough, Wirral, said: “Our new satellite office in London puts us in prime position to deliver a construction trades workforce to service  major current and planned projects in London – and the rest of the South of England – that will hugely contribute to a forecast upturn in the industry.

“Earlier this year there were signs of a slowdown in the market after a five-year construction boom that was driven by the city’s financial and technical sectors.

“However, we believe that despite all the Brexit fears, confidence is returning to the industry with London once more emerging as a major growth area for us due to a significant number of major new building programmes for office accommodation and social housing.”

Currently, a record 510 tall towers are either in the planning stages or currently under construction in the capital. In the past two years, work has started on more projects than in the previous five years put together.

At the same time, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has just announced a new programme to build 10,000 council homes over the next four years.

However, Rob reinforced the view that the construction industry is still beset by skills shortages in London and the South of England.

He explained: “It is frustrating to see London’s builders being affected by the lack of skilled trades people.

“We know there’s a whole raft of employment opportunities in the capital for a range of construction skills – bricklayers, joiners, carpenters, scaffolders and labourers.”

The announcement of the new Russell Taylor Group satellite office in London comes a matter of weeks after the opening of its Manchester base where the city’s building boom continues to open up the jobs market in construction trades.

Earlier this year, the company set up an office in Liverpool city centre as building work began at the £5 billion Liverpool Waters development site, a project which will transform the city’s northern docks, regenerating the 60-hectare site to create a world-class, mixed-use waterfront quarter, significantly benefiting the structure and economy of Liverpool City Region.

Ben Russell, chief executive of Russell Taylor Holdings, added: “This is an exciting time in our company’s programme of major expansion, particularly for Russell Taylor Group as there’s an incredible surge in construction opportunities in London, Manchester and Liverpool. New skyscrapers are appearing across the cities’ skylines and to be part of this mood of optimism in the industry is tremendous.

“Our construction recruitment operations are now at the centre of not only the capital’s upturning construction fortunes but also at the heart of the regeneration of two major Northern cities.

“We are delighted to be part of a movement in all these vibrant cities where huge programmes to create new landmark buildings to satisfy commercial growth and vital projects to reduce housing shortages will open up great opportunities for jobs and skills development.”