Careers in construction can be divided into four main areas:

• Operatives or Labourers
• Craftspeople (FÁS four year apprenticeships)
• Engineers and Quantity Surveyors
• Architects

The main engineering disciplines in this area are based on Civil engineering, a profession that deals with the design, planning, construction and maintenance of buildings, structures and essential water and waste water services.

Examples of civil engineering projects include bridges, roads, canals, dams, airports and offshore oil platforms. Civil engineering is all about improving and protecting the world we inhabit.

Civil engineering includes several sub-disciplines, which offer an exciting and broad range of career choices that allow students to choose a specialty:

• Structural: analysing and designing structures that are safe and can withstand the forces of nature such as bridges, skyscrapers, space platforms and amusement park rides.
• Transportation: providing new and improved innovations to meet people's travel needs on land, sea, and air, and reducing traffic congestion.
• Environmental and water: designing systems that will render toxic substances harmless, treat both water and waste water, reduce solid waste volumes, eliminate contaminants from the air, prevent flooding, create energy from hydroelectric facilities and protect our coasts form erosion. This includes the design of dams, canals, treatment plants and pipelines.
• Construction: seeing projects through from design stage to construction and completion. These projects include the development and construction of stadiums, skyscrapers, houses, bridges, tunnels, roads, railways, dams, pipelines and major buildings.
• Geotechnical engineering: using soil and rock mechanics to design foundations for structures, land reclamation and tunneling.

Employment opportunities include the following:

Local Authorities: providing services for people living in the area, making sure there are safe roads to drive on, clean water to drink, and houses to live in, and investigating new services.

Contractors: managing construction on site, developing and designing construction processes and techniques and supervising a professional team.

Consultancies: designing and planning projects, focusing on services, solutions and environmental impact.

Clients: working with regular construction clients that maintain in-house teams to work on or supervise major projects.

Direct employment in the construction sector accounted for 107,000 in 2011, with a further 43,000 indirectly employed in related supply companies. This is less than 50% of the numbers that were engaged in the sector at the peak of the boom years.

• There is still work in the broader areas with roads, bridges, factories and upgrading of current homes to meet new energy standards.
• To work in construction you must have an up-to-date safepass.
• Apply to construction firms, companies' operating quarries or other related business.
• Contact or visit local construction sites
• Be persistent, because most construction companies are small and do not have personnel managers
• Look in recruitment sections of newspapers