Tag Archives: Durkan

Industry buzz about SkillsPlanner

SkillsPlanner launch title slide

Last week’s formal launch in London of SkillsPlanner (see previous post) has prompted a lot of industry discussion and a flurry of interest in participating in the project, while also recognising the challenges lying ahead.

  • “The event was excellent and generated a very positive message.” — Jacquie McDonnell, Bexley College
  • An excellent event, and everybody seemed so upbeat about the future. We are heavily involved in ensuring the project’s success … a great tool /mechanism for us to understand and meet the needs of an ever-expanding construction sector.” — Tony Hyland, Department of Work and Pensions
  • “It is a pleasure to be part of a process and technology that thrives on collaboration. We have a lot of work to do to break down barriers and get people to realise that open data is the only way to go.” — Caroline Blackman, Laing O’Rourke
  • “I think everyone was impressed with the quality of industry and academic support for the project – it certainly looks ‘quality assured’. The turnout was very impressive as well.” Kevin O’Connor, Durkan
  • “It was a really good evening, very informative, and also interesting to see the breadth of organisations involved. Looking forward to continuing the partnership on development. Kath Moore, Women into Construction


Update (8 March 2016) – Ben Pritchard from construction management consultancy Invennt attended the launch event (along with colleague Tim Fitch), and has written a blog post –
Skillsplanner – open data meets the skills shortage – about the project. Ben and I are also active in Constructing Excellence which has been discussing wider use of Open Data in the sector.