Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, will join our panel – Building Competence: Ensuring a Skilled Workforce Across Construction and the Built Environment – at the UK Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) in May.

Taking place on Tuesday, May 19th at 11am in Asian and African Gallery the panel will bring together some of the sector’s most influential voices to examine how construction and the built environment can strengthen and evidence workforce competence across diverse environments.

The session will explore how improved workforce data can support smarter national and regional planning — enabling better decisions on skills investment, safety, and long-term industry resilience.

Mayor Rotheram joins Chair Suzannah Nichol OBE, Chief Executive of Build UK and fellow panellists Mark Farmer, Industry Sponsor for People & Skills within the Construction Leadership Council (CLC); Louisa Finlay, Chief Operating Officer and Chief People Officer at Kier and Sean Kearns, CSCS Group Chief Executive.

A former apprentice bricklayer who established his own construction company before entering public life, Mayor Rotheram has been a consistent champion of the sector’s workforce agenda.

He sits on the Construction Skills Mission Board as the representative for UK mayors — a board tasked with recruiting an additional 100,000 construction workers annually to underpin the Government’s 1.5 million homes target.

His presence on the panel sits alongside a wider moment of momentum for the digital skills agenda. The CLC’s 2026 action plan, published in March, identifies the design and implementation of a digital skills passporting ecosystem for the built environment as a priority under its People & Skills pillar, with the aim of enabling better workforce mobility and competency tracking across the sector.

CSCS’s own digital infrastructure, including the CSCS Alliance Workforce Insights offering, verification platform CSCS Smart Check and My CSCS as the digital skills passport for CSCS cardholders, forms part of that emerging ecosystem.

Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram, said: “Construction’s been part of my life since I first picked up a trowel as an apprentice, so I know first-hand that building a strong workforce is about having the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles.

“Through the Construction Skills Mission Board, we’re working to bring 100,000 more people into the industry every year, but simply boosting numbers isn’t enough on its own. We need better data, better digital tools, and a clearer picture of where the real gaps are, so we can make sure people are properly trained, competent, and ready for the opportunities ahead.

“That’s how we turn national ambition into real, well-paid jobs in communities like ours, and why UKREiiF is exactly the right place to be having that conversation.”

CSCS Group Chief Executive, Sean Kearns, said: “To join Suzannah, Mark, Louisa and Steve for this discussion is both a real privilege and a signal of where the digital conversation has got to. Between them, they bring the perspective of industry leadership, workforce delivery, regional economic strategy and national policy.

“CSCS is sometimes still thought of as just a card scheme, but that’s only part of the picture. The infrastructure we’ve built – across the CSCS Alliance and via our verification technology on site – means we can illustrate a more informed picture to industry of which occupations are arriving on site, where skills gaps are concentrated geographically, how carding journeys are changing, and where investment in training is needed.”

“The growing evidence from the system’s use will assist national and regional planning needs and we’re looking forward to exploring that with the panel – and industry – at UKREiiF.”

CSCS will be present throughout UKREiiF at Stand K42 (Royal Armouries, Ground Floor).