Open Doors takes young people and career changers behind the scenes to showcase the fantastic range of careers available in construction – hundreds of events will be available by March 2024. All types of construction sites, as well as training and manufacturing facilities, depots, offices, virtual reality and online events are invited to showcase roles across the sector.
Construction needs to recruit almost 45,000 new entrants per year just to maintain current output, with staff shortages affecting multiple areas of the industry. Open Doors is your opportunity to contribute to the recruitment of the next generation.
The event, which is delivered by Build UK in partnership with CITB and CSCS, enables you to offer visitors an exclusive opportunity to experience construction workplaces and see the range of the 180+ different careers in action. They will not only gain an exclusive insight into the sector, but will also leave inspired to consider construction careers going forwards – perhaps directly with your company. Do your bit and register a site or experience on the website today!
If you are interested in hosting an Open Doors tour or experience you firstly need to consider the locations you may offer, that will be suitable to receive visitors in March 2024. The best sites will showcase a range of works and trades taking place, to showcase as many careers in construction as possible.
Please consider all your options including construction sites, training facilities, virtual reality or online events. Once you have chosen your events, you can create an account on the website and then add a company and site profile. We strongly recommend all sites are added by November 2023, due to the notice period schools need to facilitate visits.
Please contact the Open Doors team if you have any queries.
Open Doors will take place from Monday 18 – Saturday 23 March 2024. View our Countdown to Open Doors 2024 for further information and to view the upcoming dates for your diaries.
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.
Once you have created an account, you will have the option to begin uploading your sites and experiences. In the short-term these will be stored in the website, but will only show publicly once your account has been approved by your Open Doors Master Coordinator or the Open Doors Team. If you are unsure who your company’s Master Coordinator is, or wish to speed up the approval, please contact the Open Doors team. We will shortly be publishing step-by-step guidance to help you through the upload process.
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 site profile, some areas will have lots of options on offer, so please be thorough to encourage them to choose to visit your site.
Each site must 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 sites to host children where possible. Depending on the nature of the site and the risk assessment conducted you may wish to apply an age restriction, which will appear on your site’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 sites 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 sites.
Filling your visit slots will be much easier if you upload your sites by November 2023.
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.
Through our work with our educational partners, we know that schools need significant notice to arrange Open Doors visits. Behind the scenes we do a lot of work to drive Careers Leaders and Teachers to look for potential sites to visit from October, and contact those sites to ask to pre-book dates during Open Doors Week. Those sites who can register early and respond quickly to these enquiries will find filling up their booking slots very easy. In order to get the visit approved, they may also ask for a Visit Brief and Risk Assessment, which we provide templates for when you are logged in. Please respond to group pre-booking enquiries as quickly as possible.
When uploading your site 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 site directly for clarity on any queries.
Each site 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 site 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) site 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 site hosting company.
Open Doors offers a Careers page with lots of useful information on construction industry roles and how to get into them. Site 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.