People are losing jobs, sales figures are down and the number of projects in the private sector has been lower over the last 18 to 24 months. There is no doubting the construction industry has been hit harder than most during the current recession in the UK.

However, businesses need to battle on and fight for contracts and figure out their strategies over the coming months and years. Interested observers looking on this very website will see that of the available jobs, sales and marketing have seen a fair number of new vacancies over the last couple of months.

Of course these areas are critical to maintaining the existing client base as well as capturing new clients and winning projects. Therefore, companies within the industry are keen to have the best possible people to help take them through the back end of the recession, and hopefully brighter times in 2010.

The bottom line is the construction industry plays a significant role in the British economy as it contributes approximately eight percent of the country?s GDP. Companies will be vying for a big slice of the cake when the economy picks up and having the best people will help to achieve that goal.

Companies within the construction industry will want professionally qualified people for jobs in sales and marketing, whether they have a background in construction or not. Research shows that companies employing professionally qualified people in these roles outperform those that don?t.