Construction Enquirer

Overview

Construction Enquirer is a free, online-only breaking-news service for UK construction, founded in 2010 and edited by Aaron Morby (Construction Enquirer). It publishes construction, building, civil engineering and house-building news without a paywall, funded by advertising, alongside work leads, market data and recruitment advertising (Construction Enquirer).

Its model is speed and brevity: editor Aaron Morby says it gives busy professionals a snapshot of the news that matters in a readable format on mobiles, desktops or tablets, because nobody can wait for a printed paper to read stories (Construction Enquirer). Its footprint in the industry is unusually deep for a free title: by September 2015 its daily newsletter went to more than 44,000 subscribers, including 814 at Kier, 810 at Laing O’Rourke and 650 at Balfour Beatty (Construction Enquirer). The Enquirer described itself as an essential daily read for owners and management at thousands of specialist contractors (Construction Enquirer). It also reported one of the Barrow upon Soar story’s key moments, the 2011 prosecution of Network Rail over the 2008 derailment (Construction Enquirer).

Free, fast and online-only

Construction Enquirer’s founding bet was that construction professionals would abandon paid-for print for free online news. An independent industry blog described it in May 2011 as a free UK-based and online-only industry news service with 80% of its readership drawn from contractors, its newsletter then going to 6,500 readers with more than 150 new subscribers signing up every week (Extranet Evolution). A year later, marking its second birthday, the Enquirer itself reported 625,000 page views a month from 100,000 unique users and a daily newsletter with 15,000 subscribers (Construction Enquirer). By September 2015 the newsletter passed 44,000 subscribers, and the Enquirer published a top-ten table of subscriber counts inside major contractors — Kier 814, Laing O’Rourke 810, Balfour Beatty 650, Willmott Dixon 453, Skanska 444, BAM 442, Wates 350, Mace 346, Carillion 346 and Morgan Sindall 333 (Construction Enquirer). Its reader surveys show an audience dominated by contractors: 80% contractors, 15% clients and professionals and 5% materials and equipment suppliers in 2012, shifting to 70% contractors, 15% clients and professionals and 15% suppliers by 2015 (Construction Enquirer; Construction Enquirer). The commercial engine is advertising plus recruitment: a growing recruitment section puts vacancies in front of employed professionals, and the Enquirer sells sponsored newsletter editions — one vendor was reported in 2011 to be paying from £300 a day for a sponsored edition (Extranet Evolution). That particular sponsored push lasted five days, with the last edition appearing on 24 May 2011 (Extranet Evolution). The recruitment offer was positioned against consultants: the Enquirer’s recruitment section carried only real jobs with named companies, and Morby argued it could channel traffic straight to firms’ own job pages, saving recruitment-consultant commission (Construction Enquirer).

How it covers the industry

The Enquirer’s coverage mixes contract wins, frameworks, company results, courts and safety. Its Barrow article is a compact example: it reported that a dump truck delivering ballast had not lowered its rear tipping body, that the body struck a wrought-iron pedestrian bridge and knocked it onto the tracks, and that the East Midlands Trains service travelling at 65 mph was derailed at Barrow on Soar in February 2008 (Construction Enquirer). It carried the Office of Rail Regulation’s verdict — that Network Rail’s poor planning and management of construction-site safety at Barrow placed the travelling public at risk — and reported that Leicester Crown Court heard the firm had no proper construction-site safety assessment in place (Construction Enquirer). It also recorded the human detail other accounts confirm: the train driver was cut free from his cab, trapped for two-and-a-half hours with serious leg injuries (Construction Enquirer). The same courtroom-and-contracts mix defines its daily output, from framework winners and tunnel jobs to fatal-accident sentencings. In 2018 the Enquirer cited Alexa traffic data ranking it 6,183rd of all UK websites, ahead of Construction News at 15,608, Building at 32,249 and New Civil Engineer at 39,867, with 97% of its page views from the UK (Construction Enquirer). That ranking is the publisher’s own citation of third-party data, not an independent audit. Its current output shows the same formula applied to major public projects: in October 2026 it reported that the Becketwell site in Derby had been picked for the Great British Railways headquarters, with the rail body set to take the planned eight-storey 3 Springwell Square office (Construction Enquirer). The 106,000 sq ft building would house up to 450 staff, with construction expected to start in 2027 and completion targeted for spring 2029, giving fresh momentum to the £200 million city-centre regeneration (Construction Enquirer). The developer, Peveril Securities, is the property arm of contractor Bowmer & Kirkland, which had already built the £45.8 million Vaillant Live events venue at Becketwell, although no main contractor had yet been formally appointed for the office (Construction Enquirer). The Government chose Becketwell ahead of Midland House opposite Derby station, which had also been shortlisted (Construction Enquirer).

The awards experiment

In May 2016 the Enquirer tried to extend its influence from news into recognition, launching the Construction Enquirer Awards (Construction Enquirer). The awards were to recognise the industry’s best companies to work for and the best firms to do business with, open to main contractors, specialist contractors, suppliers and clients, with an awards evening in October held alongside UK Construction Week in Birmingham (Construction Enquirer). The distinctive mechanism was the vote: companies could nominate themselves or be put forward by employees or suppliers, then nominees had to attract online votes from peers and employees, with a Top Ten in each category decided by the public vote and an ultimate winner revealed on the night (Construction Enquirer). Independent trade press confirmed the plan: Building Talk reported twelve categories, Top Ten lists published in August, entries closing on 30 June, and a gala night at the Vox at the NEC Birmingham on 18 October (Building Talk). Large companies could submit multiple entries if they had separate operating divisions, and winners were to receive a certificate and branded materials for use across their marketing collateral (Building Talk). Editor Aaron Morby framed the awards as a revolt against stale ceremonies, saying current industry awards were getting stale with only ticket prices changing, and that the Enquirer’s awards would be voted for by the industry (Construction Enquirer). Media 10’s Nathan Garnett, whose company organised UK Construction Week, called them the only awards giving the industry a chance to recognise peerless service (Building Talk).

Year	Daily newsletter subscribers	Monthly page views	Source
2011	6,500	Not stated	Extranet Evolution (independent)
2012	15,000	625,000 from 100,000 unique users	Enquirer’s own second-birthday report
2015	More than 44,000	Not stated	Enquirer’s own reach report
2018	Not stated	Alexa UK rank 6,183	Enquirer’s own citation of Alexa data

Sources: Extranet Evolution; Construction Enquirer; Construction Enquirer; Construction Enquirer. All figures are self-reported except the 2011 newsletter count, which an independent blog reported.

Frequently asked questions

What is Construction Enquirer? It is a free, online-only breaking-news service for UK construction, building, civil engineering and house-building professionals. It publishes news without a paywall, funded by advertising, and also provides work leads, market data and recruitment advertising to the construction industry. Its daily email newsletter is the flagship product, reaching more than 44,000 subscribers by 2015.

When was Construction Enquirer founded? In 2010. The founding year is inferred from the Enquirer’s own report of its second birthday in May 2012, which dates the launch to 2010. No exact launch date is stated in any source read in full, so this profile gives the year only.

Who edits Construction Enquirer? Aaron Morby, who is named as editor in the Enquirer’s own articles from 2012 onwards, including its second-birthday report, its reach report and its awards launch. He is quoted throughout as the voice of the title’s editorial position and has been its public editorial face since at least 2012.

Does Construction Enquirer print a magazine? No. It is an online-only service, described by an independent industry blog in 2011 as a free UK-based online-only news service. Its editor has said nobody can wait for a printed paper to read stories, and its model is a daily email newsletter plus a website.

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not present the Enquirer’s audience, traffic or ranking figures as independently verified — they are the publisher’s own numbers, except the 2011 newsletter count reported by an independent blog (Extranet Evolution). It does not state the company’s legal entity, registered address or ownership, which no fully-read source verifies; directory and database listings were deliberately not used. It does not claim the Construction Enquirer Awards continued beyond their 2016 launch or name any winners (Building Talk). It does not treat the shift in audience mix between the 2012 and 2015 surveys as evidence of a trend beyond what the two self-reported surveys show (Construction Enquirer; Construction Enquirer).