When construction giant Carillion collapsed in 2018, it did so with debts of £2 billion owed to more than 30,000 suppliers. By the time that ISG folded in 2024, it had amassed debts of more than £1.1 billion. At the time of the collapse, it was about to post a pre-tax loss of £138 million. Closer to home, when demolition contractor Squibb Group went under, it did so owing more than £24 million.

In each instance, creditors had little prospect of recouping any of the monies owed.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the course of the past year or so, around 5,000 UK construction companies have slipped beneath the surface. Many of these will have done so with debts, some of them hefty. Those debts will have had a significant impact upon the entire supply chain, from plant hirers and scaffolders to piling contractors to recruitment companies.

Now I could ramble on about how this typifies the boom and bust cycle of construction. I could hold forth on how this is a reflection upon the wafer-thin profit margins within the sector. I could wax lyrical about how none of these major collapses has led to any kind of shift in the way in which this industry does business. And I could also question just how many of the directors involved in all of this bounced back, seemingly unscathed, to start afresh while their supply chain was left to carry the can.

But I am going to take a different approach in this instance. And for my inspiration, I am going to use the satellite navigation app, Waze.

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Once every three years, they come. From over a hundred nations, from the frozen north to the burning equator, they make their way to Munich. A million strong, they arrive at the Messe Munchen exhibition centre, drawn by something greater than mere curiosity. This is not just an exhibition. This is Bauma. And for those in the demolition and construction industry, it is more than a trade show. It’s a pilgrimage.

They come to stand in the shadow of giants. Towering cranes stretch toward the heavens like the spires of imaginary cathedrals, their booms reaching into infinity, their steel forms etched against the sky as if in silent prayer. The faithful gaze upward, dwarfed by the sheer scale of human ingenuity, feeling the same reverence one might feel when standing beneath the arches of a great temple. This is a sacred space, a place where faith in machines, in industry, in progress, is reaffirmed.

Massive dump trucks crouch like mythical beasts, waiting to be tamed. Excavators, their arms outstretched, promise power and precision beyond imagination. Each machine is more than metal and hydraulics. To those who gather, they are symbols: of progress; of strength; of the very foundation upon which the world is built. They are relics of past triumphs and harbingers of the future, as if forged by the gods of industry themselves.

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The National Federation of Demolition Contractors is on the hunt for a new CEO ahead of the imminent departure of the incumbent Duncan Rudall.

Please do not panic – I am definitely not throwing my hat into the ring. But I would like to offer up a few points to help in the selection process.

In an ideal world, the successful candidate will have some demolition experience. This is an industry like no other, and the successful candidate will have their hands filled with internal politics and opposing factions without having to learn an entirely new industry at the same time.

They should be mature enough to have some life and business experience, yet youthful enough to be unafraid of the technology that is part and parcel of the modern demolition world.

They should be friendly and approachable, yet aloof to avoid demands for favouritism among members and senior officers alike. Equally, they should be ruthless when trying to figure out why a trade body with so few members requires so many staff.

They will need to be smart (both the academic AND the street kind, ideally) quick-thinking and erudite. This is a job that requires a lot of speaking and a lot of questions to answer. Bumbling is not an option.

And, speaking of questions, they should also be media-savvy and media-trained. Through no fault of their own, NFDC CEOs often find themselves in the journalistic firing line over accidents, fatalities, scaffold collapses, member company collapses, and collusion and corruption. The ability to field probing questions whilst not looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights would be a major benefit.

They will need to be blessed with a skin thick enough to withstand the slings and arrows of criticism that will inevitably come their way. The old adage is “you can’t please all the people all the time”. In NFDC circles, pleasing a single person is verging on the miraculous.

Most of all, they need to demonstrate the leadership and moral fortitude required to herd 100+ members in roughly the same direction towards a common goal.

Just one final point. Experience is unquestionably valuable. But just because someone has been around, seemingly, forever doesn’t necessarily mean they are actually good. Maybe they just never rocked a boat that so clearly requires some rocking.