ABSTRACT
The UK construction industry is a unique, complex and often fragmented industry. The industry employs approximately 250,000 contractors, 2.1 million people, a high percentage of which are self-employed with a ratio of male to female of 9:1, with 99" of workers on construction sites being male. The principal messages from the Latham and Egan reports were that the construction industry needed to concentrate and invest in modernization, innovation, and mass production. In 1834 architects decided that they wished to divorce themselves from surveyors and establish the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), exclusively for architects. The events of 1834 were also responsible for the birth of another UK phenomenon, the quantity surveyor. The construction supply chain is the network of organisations involved in the different processes and activities that produce the materials, components and services that come together to design, procure and deliver a building.
