Sign up for active duty

The successful candidate must have the patience of a saint, the negotiating skills of a diplomat and bags of cross-sector experience to work with private sector partners, at least four council departments, an NHS trust, three schools, the police, nine quangos, 25 community groups and thousands of residents.

Finally, you’ll have to be good at coping with uncertainty, because at any stage over the 15 years that it will take you to deliver the project, national or local policy-makers could change political direction or simply take the money away.

Job adverts aren’t written that way, but this is the reality of regeneration in the UK. It demands a massive amount from its professionals and gives them minimal job security.

As a result, the industry is constantly hungry for staff. Regenerate’s first Working in Regeneration survey, compiled in association with recruitment consultant PSD Group last year, made clear the extent of the problem. For this year’s survey, we asked whether recruitment had got harder or easier in the past 12 months. The consensus is that it keeps on getting tougher.

Those who can afford it throw money at the problem, bringing in the headhunters or upping the salary. That will solve your recruitment crisis today, but your aspirations for a project could still be thwarted by a lack of skills within one of your partners. Yes, I have heard the anecdotes about the experienced consultant who finds himself presenting to one of his recent trainees, the die-hard bureaucrat who blocks every vision and so on.

The solution is to train more people. The Academy for Sustainable Communities and BURA’s Regenerator Workforce campaign are dedicated to that task. It shouldn’t stop there. “All companies need to engage in training,” says Alan Cherry, chairman of Countryside Properties, on page 30 – and he is practising what he preaches. Are you?

Regeneration needs you, not only to work in the industry, but to help improve its skills base. You might not be able to do anything about the political uncertainties, but you can nurture, encourage and train to make sure the industry has the people it deserves and sorely needs.