Local lowdown: Yorkshire

Yorkshire is experiencing a boom in residential, commercial and public-sector schemes at present, and nowhere is this more evident than in central Leeds. Contractor MJ Gleeson is working on a £50m block of residential apartments overlooking the river Aire; plans are afoot for a £125m leisure complex, including bars and restaurants and a casino; and Bovis Lend Lease is constructing the tallest building in the city, Bridgewater Place. Costing £40m, this will be a combination of offices and residential flats, with additional leisure facilities for residents.

Public-sector projects in the centre of Leeds include the refurbishment of the town hall by Quarmby Construction at a cost of £3.5m and the construction of student accommodation, which is being run by Totty Construction.

Alongside these developments are plans by the city council to spend in the region of £700m refurbishing housing stock. Firms rumoured to be in the running are FHM, Mears, Lovell and Bullocks, and Kier. Sean Mcvitie, manager at Hays Montrose's Leeds office, says that this is an emerging trend across the region. He says: "Leeds council is just one example of councils investing in their housing stock. Wakefield council is planning £700m of investment and Sheffield has £1.2bn to spend on the Decent Homes scheme."

The main highways project is the A1(M) scheme, which has been running for two years already and involves the widening of the road from two to three lanes on the stretch from Doncaster to Darlington, County Durham. The project, which is being run by a consortium that includes contractors Amec and Alfred McAlpine, will involve the construction of 90 structures and bridges along the way.

Due to this high volume of work, skills shortages in Yorkshire are severe, with demand outstripping supply across the board. Mcvitie says: "There are so many choices for people at the moment; one of our key shortages is for people willing to work in and around Leeds."

Hays recently needed to recruit a project co-ordinator for a leading modular building company. The client required a graduate with at least two years' experience in the construction industry, project management skills and high levels of literacy, numeracy and IT ability. The package available was about £30,000 including car allowance, pension, healthcare and performance-related bonus. Tim Rudkin, a manager at Hays' Leeds office, says: "This was a difficult role to fill, as young, ambitious and experienced candidates with this type of experience are rare and they tend to get snapped up very quickly. We did eventually find a local graduate with three years' experience."

Another interesting role was a contract manager with a regional contractor in the East Riding area. They were looking for an individual with at least five years' management experience in the construction industry, preferably as a contract manager in a similar company. Ideally the client wanted experience of a variety of projects within the commercial and industrial sectors. "Again, this was a tricky role for us to fill," says Rudkin. "There were not many high-quality contract managers in the area."

Other clients in similar situations have had to broaden their search and offer packages upwards of £35,000 in order to lure candidates from the South.

As with many areas of the country Yorkshire is also experiencing extensive development across public and private sector construction, a trend that looks set to continue and benefit jobseekers.