101

The number of floors in the world's new tallest tower, Taipei 101, in Taiwan. Contractor Kumagai Gumi lifted the final 60m spire into place in October.

Work on the 509m tower halted for two months in March 2002 after an earthquake caused two of the project's cranes to fall from the 56th floor of the building, killing two people and injuring several others. After several investigations Kumagai brought in two new cranes with pin-strengthened masts, similar to the two cranes that didn't come down in the quake.

The structure of the tower incorporates an 800 tonne damping mass on the 88th floor. Energy from an earthquake should transfer from the building to a huge swinging ball to stabilise the tower.

Taipei 101, which took the tallest building title from Malaysia's Petronas Towers, is also the tallest bulding to the roof structure and will have the highest occupied floor, according to www.scyscrapers.com.

332

The number of prohibition notices slapped on construction sites during the Health and Safety Executive's falls from heights blitz in September. Inspectors visited 1,429 sites and also handed out 82 improvement notices.

This shows no improvement on the June 2003 visits when the HSE issued the same number of prohibitions, and a handful fewer improvement notices on 1,446 sites.

Safety shortcuts uncovered by inspectors included workers balancing on scaffold rails without harnesses to work on cladding, men working on house roofs with no protection whatsoever and scaffolding supported on loose bricks.

Scotland and the North-West were the worst offenders with one in three sites receiving prohibition notices. Last year 33 construction workers were killed by falls from height.

35,720

The average national wage for a 35-year old project manager, according to statistics from recruitment consultant Hays Montrose. This was up 5.5% from £35,270 last year.

Project managers in Central London have the biggest pay packets with £40,000, up 6.5%. But those in the West and East Midlands saw the best growth, with a 9% rise to £37,000 and £36,000 respectively.

Contracts managers, typically aged 45, don't seem to be far ahead of their colleagues on site in financial terms. The national average is £37,600; £42,000 in Central London.

Those with the biggest smiles on their faces should be the assistant quantity surveyors, who saw a 12% rise nationally from £19,260 to £21,623.

n Figures released from the Office of National Statistics last month show scaffolders are the best paid tradesmen, taking home an average salary of £26,047.

350,000

Pounds paid by Alfred McAlpine in a rebranding move, the first in 25 years, which sees the firm lose its first name from a new purple logo.

Started in 1940 by Alfred McAlpine and his son Jimmie, it is not to be confused with Sir Robert McAlpine, which Alfred's father established back in 1869. Although Alfred McAlpine remains the firm's official name, the company has taken the 'Alf' out of its branding because management believe it is linked in everyone's minds to construction.

Having acquired a range of new firms over the past two years, the business is now split into three: McAlpine Business Services which handles FM and support services, McAlpine Capital Projects for civil engineering and construction and Infrastructure Services for utilities and highways.

McAlpine employs around 8000 people in the UK and its sales in 2002 were £768m.

£1.3 BILLION

The value of work lost by contractors due to Network Rail's decision to take all its maintenance contracts in house. The firms losing out are Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Amec, Amey, First Engineering and Serco. Jarvis, which does the most maintenance work, pulled out two weeks prior to Network Rail's announcement saying that the returns were poor and the "reputational risks" were too high. Network Rail will be taking 18,000 workers employed by the contractors in-house.

In what has been called "creeping nationalisation", the terms of the maintenance contracts have changed since the then transport secretary Stephen Byers pulled the plug on Railtrack in late 2001.

The good news for contractors is that Network Rail will still be letting track renewal work, worth £2.5bn.

Source

Construction Manager