LJ Construction Carpentry Contractors Ltd

10/04/2026

Contractor of the Quarter - Miller Homes South Midlands
3 out of 3 for LJC in quarter 4 2025!

We are delighted to have been awarded Q4 2025 Contractor of the Quarter on...

✅ Pembroke Chase
✅ Stanton Cross
✅ Norwood Quarter

And as a result, we also won the overall contractor of the quarter award.

We always strive to drive and deliver consistency across our full business, so when two of our contracts managers are recognised by the same business unit for the service they are delivering, we know it's working!

Huge well done to both Freddy Mahon and Brenton Boyes.

Not just that, a few other small wins here...

🟢 employed apprentices on all 3 jobs
🟢 Q4 is always a testing period; so great to see the efforts recognised
🟢 a great working relationship with the team at Millers, which makes it a pleasure to continue to support where we can

As always, a huge thank you and well done to our internal team, carpenters and apprentices for their continued efforts.

13/03/2026

Contractor of the Year - Taylor Wimpey South Midlands!

We are delighted to have been awarded the Large Contractor of the Year for the South Midlands division at Taylor Wimpey.

This award is extra special to us for a number of reasons...

✅ Our first-ever Timber Frame er****on site at Salden Place
(Big shout-out to our Training and Development Manager, Paul Connor, for leading this for the business)
✅ 3 of our contracts managers involved in Taylor Wimpey South Midlands sites
✅Apprentices on all jobs for the region

A huge thank you to all the team at TWSM!

And as always, thank you to our team of Carpenters, Timber Frame Erectors, Crane Team, Apprentices and our whole management team.

Pictured (L to R):

Hayden Dolby (MD TWSM), Ben Jones (Commercial Director), James McMahon (Contracts Manager), Lee Jones (Construction Director), Kev Salisbury (Construction Director TWSM)

27/02/2026

Supporting the Next Generation

As a business, we love supporting local sport, especially for children in our local area.

This year, we have supported several different sports and teams to ensure local sport can continue.

The Carpentry Academy's goal is to offer great opportunities to the younger generation and, in turn, go some way to filling the industry skills gap.

Supporting the teams listed below, and having The Carpentry Academy logo on their kits, hopefully gives some exposure to opportunities in our industry.

Woodford United Wolverines - Under 12s - Northamptonshire Women and Girls Football League - Away Kit

Woodbourne Sports FC - All youth Teams - Kit

Easington Sports - Under 13s - Oxford Boys C League - Kit Bags

Banbury United - Under 8s - Oxford C League - Kit

Coventry Blaze - National Ice Hockey League 2 - Ollie Dixon Kit

Wishing you all a great season ahead!

Here's to the next generation of sport and construction talents!

https://www.ljconstruction.co.uk/news/supporting-the-next-generation

13/02/2026

NATIONAL APPRENTICESHIP WEEK

Celebrating all apprentices – the future of our industry.

At LJ Construction, we’re proud to be investing in the future generations.

✅ 14 apprentices currently in the first year of their apprenticeship
✅ 12 apprentices in their second year
✅ 21 trainees working towards their NVQ Level 2

The skills gap is real. An ageing workforce is real. But so is the demand for opportunity.

Each of our apprenticeship intakes has been oversubscribed by 30x.

The harsh reality:

🔴 The minimum wage for apprentices has increased by 135% in the last 10 years.
🔴 You won’t retain everyone you invest in.
🔴 Compliance and training requirements demand time and engagement from the whole business.

The great reality:

🟢 It’s incredibly rewarding to help create and develop the next generation of skills.
🟢 Our industry offers fantastic long-term careers, and apprenticeships help them continue to grow.
🟢 You build a stronger team, environment and culture – together.

We're so proud to have been ranked 23rd in the Top 50 SME Apprenticeship Employers 2025 - and 5th nationwide for Construction, Property & Surveying companies. Hear from our apprentices about their journey here…

LJ Construction Carpentry Contractors Limited Student Reviews: https://higherin.com/company-profile/7611/lj-construction-carpentry-contractors-limited/reviews

Whilst it becomes harder each year, both financially and practically, to recruit and manage apprentices, it's vital that we continue to invest in the future of our industry.

16/01/2026

LJ Construction Becomes Approved Member of the CITB Training Provider Network

The approval recognises our ability to deliver construction training at the required level and quality the industry requires.

The application process assesses our Qualifications, Competence and Facility to deliver the required training.

What this means for us...

🟢 CITB Recognised training for our workforce
🟢 Ability to be reactive to Industry Compliance Requirements

Big thanks to the team at CITB for supporting us with getting this setup.

More to come from The Carpentry Academy later this year as we continue to develop and grow this arm of the business to meet the increasing skills and compliance requirements.

https://www.ljconstruction.co.uk/news/citb-training-provider-network-approved-member

22/12/2025

Our Year in Review… 2025

With the daily challenges in the industry, it can be difficult to step back and reflect on the key performance of the company throughout the year. But as we look back at this past year, we take great pride in our company's achievements.

This year, we…

✅ Brought 23 new trainees and 14 new apprentices into the housebuilding industry, supporting the next generation of carpenters.
✅ Worked alongside 13 NHBC Quality Award-Winning Site Managers.
✅ Maintained a Construction Quality Review (CQR) score of 5.16 across the business.
✅ Began working with 5 new housebuilders.
✅ Achieved 94% of our customer care SLAs.

Continued investment in ourselves, the future of the company, and the future of the industry…

👉 Tackling the skills shortage - The challenge gets harder year on year to tackle the skills shortage, with rising Apprenticeship wages, increased training requirements to meet compliance along with an ageing workforce. However, we continue to do everything we can to combat this.
👉 Growing the business - Strengthening existing relationships and welcoming new housebuilder partners, we are super grateful for the opportunity.
👉 Quality first - We continue to audit, train and educate our teams to deliver the best possible service we can to our clients.
👉 Data-driven improvement - Ongoing analysis of customer care performance to better understand trends and drive continuous improvement.

Looking ahead, our focus remains clear: raising standards, developing people, and continuing to play an active role in addressing the skills gap within our industry. The investment made this year is only the beginning, and we’re excited about what lies ahead.

As we close out the year and head into our Christmas break, we’d like to thank everyone who has supported and worked alongside LJC throughout the year.

With a special thank you to all the internal and Sub-Contractor team working with LJC, we couldn’t do any of the above without you.

We wish all our Clients, Suppliers and the entire LJC team a very Merry Christmas and a successful New Year.

07/11/2025

Site-Ready Course - Complete!

We have today completed our Site-Ready course with our 14 New Apprentices for 2025 and are happy to confirm they have all been released onto site.

Over a 4-week course here at our Carpentry Academy in Banbury, we have completed core knowledge and competency training to get the apprentices ready for the site environment, including…

✅ Power Tool Competency Training (CITB Approved)
✅ Manual handling (CITB Approved)
✅ Carpentry basics, including stud work, skirting, internal doors, joists, and roofs
✅ Face fit tested
✅ Inductions
✅ CSCS card tests
✅ Material and product knowledge
✅ Crane awareness and basic signalling

A change in structure...

With 2024 being our first full apprentice intake, we learnt a lot as a business.

We used this experience to improve, and this year we made many changes to our recruitment, enrolment, and site-ready course.

Kieron Sear, our Apprenticeship Manager, has offered fresh ideas and a wealth of experience in the teaching field.

One key change we made was reducing the group size for the site-ready course from 1 group of 14 to 2 groups of 7.

Whilst this has taken up a lot more time internally, it has given the apprentices a much better experience and closer teaching during this initial period.

Bridging the skills gap...

As the skills gap continues to grow, we will continue to invest in the future of our industry.

Whilst the focus now is on this group of talented future carpenters and how we can support them in their journey.

We will also begin planning for 2026 and make minor tweaks to give us and the industry the best chance of retaining the generational future.

Congratulations to all the apprentices. We're proud of all you've achieved so far and can't wait to see how you all progress.

15/08/2025

🎉 👏 Construction Team gain NVQ Level 6s 👏 🎉

Congratulations to our management team on the completion of their NVQ Level 6 in Construction Operations.

Supervision, Golden Thread, Duty Holders are all hot topics right now!

Also, with the loss of the grandfather rights last year, the challenge was on to retrain and get the team certifications back up to date as soon as we could.

Following a lengthy examination and evidence process, all of our team successfully passed and have now obtained their black CSCS Card.

This now brings LJC back to 100% compliant across our full workforce with CSCS Cards.

More to come later in the year as the CITB competency frameworks gain momentum.

16/06/2025

🚨 Big news from The Carpentry Academy!

We're delighted to welcome qualified Teacher and Carpentry Lecturer Kieron Sear to LJC!

Kieron joins us to support our delivery of the apprenticeship programme as well as developing our in-house training department to keep up with industry compliance demands.

The skills shortage remains a huge topic in the industry, and we continue to invest to do our bit and train our future workforce.

Also, with the ever-changing outlook of construction and the increasing competency demands from the Building Safety Act, Kieron will work to ensure our workforce remains compliant.

“I'm looking forward to working with our crop of promising young carpentry apprentices. I am confident that the Carpentry Academy, alongside LJ Construction, can have a positive impact within the construction industry training space. ” - Kieron

Find out more about Kieron joining The Carpentry Academy:

We're delighted to welcome qualified Teacher & Carpentry Lecturer Kieron Sear to LJC! Kieron joins us to support our delivery of the apprenticeship programme. Find out more.

30/05/2025

🚨 We're Hiring: Crane Drivers & Supervisors! 🚨

Our Crane Department is expanding — and we're especially focused on supporting our Timber Frame Team.

If you're an experienced Crane Driver or Supervisor looking for a new opportunity, we’d love to hear from you.

📢 Apply today!

LJ Construction Carpentry Contractors Ltd

09/05/2025

We’re proud to announce that LJ Construction is now a CITB Approved Training Organisation (ATO)!

This means we can now deliver Assured training courses recognised by CITB, starting with Manual Handling and Power Tools for our apprentices. We will then begin exploring further in-house training we can now offer to our site teams.

Further exciting developments on our in-house training setup next month!

https://www.ljconstruction.co.uk/news/citb-approved-training-organisation