Open Doors takes young people and career changers behind the scenes to showcase the fantastic range of careers available in construction, with hundreds of events recently participating in March 2024. All types of construction sites, as well as training and manufacturing facilities, depots, offices, and virtual reality took part.
Construction needs to recruit almost 50,000 new entrants per year just to maintain current output, with staff shortages affecting multiple areas of the industry. Open Doors plays a vital role in contributing to the recruitment of the next generation.
The event, which was delivered by Build UK in partnership with CITB and CSCS, enabled businesses to offer visitors an exclusive opportunity to experience construction workplaces and see the range of the 180+ different careers in action. They not only gained an exclusive insight into the sector, but left inspired to consider construction careers going forwards – perhaps directly with participating companies!
Open Doors 2024 has now concluded, with details of future events to be confirmed in due course.
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Open Doors took place from Monday 18 – Saturday 23 March 2024. Details on future events will be released shortly.
Open Doors took place from Monday 18 – Saturday 23 March 2024 and you can see more in our Gallery. You can also find out more about the impact of the event in our 2023 Review. A Review of the 2024 event will be published shortly.
The following rates apply per location opened:
*Rate drops to £1,350+VAT per site when two are opened and £1,200+VAT per site when three or more are opened.
In order to host Open Doors events you must:
You can create an account by visiting our sign up page and entering your details. You will then receive access to a range of resources to help you register events and promote your involvement.
Step-by-step guidance on uploading your events is available in the Website User Guide.
Each visit will be bespoke to the location on offer, whether that is a construction site, office or training facility. The core inclusions for any event should be:
We aim to showcase construction as a fantastic career to get into, so offering interactive experiences e.g. virtual reality, simulators or work tasters is an excellent way to engage with guests. You should detail what your visit includes in the event’s profile, some areas will have lots of options on offer, so please be thorough to encourage them to choose to book your event.
Each event host should consider what its tours will include and therefore how long the visits should last. There are usually several questions from visitors and so visits between 1-2 hours should be sufficient.
Group numbers should be decided according to the spaces available at your location and the number of persons you can safely host at a given time. You should restrict numbers and/or stagger tours if in any doubt.
We actively encourage all events to host children where possible. Depending on the nature of the event and the risk assessment conducted you may wish to apply an age restriction, which will appear on your event’s profile. All vulnerable individuals including under 18s must be accompanied by a responsible adult. If under 18, they must also have parental or legal guardian consent.
The Open Doors team conducts extensive work with its Partner network to drive visitors to the website to see all the visit opportunities available. However, we actively encourage all event hosts to promote their slots to their own networks too. When you are logged into the website you will be able to access a number of resources including posters, press releases, social media graphics and postcards, as well as advice on promoting your events.
The Open Doors team provides a number of templates to make your involvement as simple as possible. The templates available include a Photo Consent Form, Risk Assessment, Visit Brief, as well as guidance for local site teams on things to consider when hosting visits. The additional information is available in the Resources section of the website, once you are logged into your account.
When uploading your event it is important to be clear on any obvious obstacles that may prevent certain visitors from attending (e.g. staircase-only access) in the accessibility section. Prospective visitors with SEND requirements are encouraged to contact the event host directly for clarity on any queries.
Each event taking part in Open Doors must risk assess the planned tour and any activities taking place on it to ensure the safety of guests. The risk assessment may identify hazards which mean that tour routes are changed or control measures are advised (e.g. PPE). The location should host a safety briefing at the start of the visit to inform visitors of any safety protocols in place that must be adhered to. If specific days of Open Doors Week pose problems (e.g. expectation of excessive noise or dust) event hosts can choose to only open on the other days that week.
Please contact the Open Doors team if you wish to discuss this further.
Each site is responsible for considering the nature of the tours it will offer and conducting a risk assessment accordingly. If PPE is required then you would need to provide this for your guests. The cost of the PPE must be met by the event host company.
Open Doors offers a Careers page with lots of useful information on construction industry roles and how to get into them. Event hosts are also encouraged to provide information on careers within their own company and any current vacancies.
Please email the team via info@opendoors.construction.