The Struggles in Construction and Why Mental Health Support Must Be a Priority

I have spent over 15 years working in construction as an electrician. During that time, I have met some of the most dependable, skilled and hardworking people you could ever hope to work beside.

I have also watched people become exhausted, withdrawn and overwhelmed while carrying on as though nothing was wrong. I have heard about relationships falling apart, workers relying on alcohol or drugs to switch off and managers reaching breaking point while trying to hold an entire project together. Many of these struggles remained hidden because people did not feel safe enough to speak or believed that nothing would change if they did.

Construction is good at responding to visible risk. We assess work at height, moving plant, electricity, dust and manual handling because we understand what can happen when hazards are ignored. The pressures affecting mental health deserve that same seriousness.

The CIOB’s 2025 research into mental health in the built environment shows how deeply workplace conditions are affecting people. Excessive workloads, poor communication, unrealistic deadlines, poor planning and inadequate staffing were all identified as major contributors to poor mental health.

These are not problems that can be solved by telling people to become more resilient. They are signals that parts of the industry are operating in ways that people cannot sustain indefinitely.

This article looks at five pressures construction workers and leaders regularly face, and what practical support could look like. The aim is not to attack the industry. It is to help protect the people who keep it moving.

The Struggles in Construction Can No Longer Be Ignored

Construction is built around pressure. Programmes have to be met, budgets controlled and problems resolved quickly. A delay in one area can affect every trade that follows, and the people on site are often expected to recover time they had no part in losing.

Pressure will always exist in the industry. The concern is what happens when exceptional pressure becomes the everyday way of working. Long hours become normal. Breaks disappear. People answer calls late into the evening and travel home exhausted before doing it again the next morning.

Some workers have described days running from 7am until 10pm. Others work nights, weekends or spend long periods away from home. Even when those hours are temporary, the body and mind still need time to recover. When the pattern continues for weeks or months, tiredness develops into something much deeper.

The Health and Safety Executive identifies six areas that can cause work-related stress when poorly managed: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. Construction workers can be exposed to all six at once.

Mental health support therefore has to include both help for the person and action on the conditions surrounding them. Counselling, coaching and helplines matter, but they cannot compensate for a business model that repeatedly pushes people beyond their limits.

1. Workload and Burnout: When Relentless Pressure Becomes Normal

Construction often celebrates the person who stays latest, answers every call and never says no. Commitment matters, but there is a point where reliability becomes self-neglect.

Burnout does not always arrive as a dramatic breakdown. It can begin with poor sleep, irritability and a growing feeling of dread before work. Concentration becomes harder. Small decisions feel overwhelming. A person may become cynical, detached or unusually quiet. They are still turning up, but they are using nearly everything they have just to get through the day.

This creates a safety issue. Construction work depends on attention, communication and sound judgement. A worker who is mentally and physically exhausted is more likely to miss information, react slowly or make a mistake. The same applies to managers making decisions that affect entire teams.

The pressure is made worse when communication is poor. Workers receive last-minute changes, conflicting instructions or little explanation about why the programme has moved. Frustration grows because they are expected to deliver without being given enough time, information or resources.

What Individuals Can Do

Notice changes in your sleep, mood, patience and concentration. These can be early signs that your capacity is being stretched. Take breaks, use annual leave and set boundaries around calls or messages where your role allows it. If you are struggling to organise priorities or say no, construction-focused coaching may help you develop clearer boundaries and practical ways forward.

What Employers Must Do

Review workloads, staffing levels and working hours before burnout becomes visible through absence or mistakes. Ask teams where the pressure is coming from and act on the answer. Build recovery time into programmes after exceptional periods and make sure workers can take proper breaks without being treated as though they lack commitment.

Employers have a duty to assess and manage work-related stress, just as they manage other health and safety risks. HSE provides a practical stress risk-assessment process that businesses of any size can use.

2. Financial Stress and Insecure Work: The Pressure That Travels Onto Site

Construction has one of the largest self-employed workforces in the UK. Self-employment can offer freedom and opportunity, but it can also mean irregular income, late payments and uncertainty about where the next contract is coming from.

Genuinely self-employed people do not have all the employment protections available to employees, such as paid holiday. They also do not qualify for Statutory Sick Pay because eligibility requires someone to be classed as an employee. That can leave a worker facing an impossible choice: take time away to recover or keep working because the household cannot afford a gap in income.

Financial pressure rarely stays at home. A person worrying about credit cards, rent, the mortgage or an unpaid invoice brings those thoughts into the van and onto site. Their attention is divided before the work has even started.

For some, money worries exist alongside separation, child arrangements or legal costs. A father going through a custody dispute may be trying to manage grief, fear and financial uncertainty while still being expected to perform as normal. If there is nowhere safe to talk, the pressure can become all-consuming.

Onward Shift explores this relationship further in Why Financial Wellbeing Is a Safety Issue in Construction.

What Individuals Can Do

Start by getting a clear picture of what is coming in, what is going out and which payments need urgent attention. The MoneyHelper budget planner is free and confidential, while StepChange provides free debt advice and personalised support.

If separation or child arrangements are adding to the pressure, Citizens Advice explains the available routes, including mediation and where to seek further guidance. Personal legal situations are complex, so workers should be directed towards qualified advice rather than relying on informal opinions from colleagues.

What Employers Must Do

Pay people and subcontractors on time. Make payment terms clear and avoid leaving workers chasing money they have already earned. Provide financial wellbeing information without waiting for somebody to disclose debt, and make confidential advice visible to employees and subcontractors alike.

Managers do not need to solve a worker’s finances or family situation. They can listen, protect confidentiality, consider reasonable temporary adjustments and direct the person towards appropriate support.

3. Mental Health and Silence: Why Posters Are Only a Starting Point

Many construction businesses now display mental health posters, include helplines in welfare areas or mention wellbeing during an induction. That progress matters. A number on a wall may help someone take a first step privately.

The problem comes when the message on the poster does not match the culture around it. A company cannot tell workers to speak up and then ridicule the first person who does. It cannot promote wellbeing while rewarding constant overwork or treating mental health absence as a lack of commitment.

Workers often stay quiet because they fear being judged, overlooked for future work or seen as unreliable. For subcontractors and people on short-term projects, the risk can feel even greater. They may believe that one honest conversation could affect whether they receive another call.

Silence can look like strength from the outside. It may actually be fear.

What Individuals Can Do

You do not have to tell an entire site what you are going through. Start with one trusted person: a colleague, manager, family member, GP, counsellor or helpline volunteer. If speaking face to face feels too difficult, write down what has been happening or begin with a phone call.

Onward Shift counselling offers a confidential place to talk, while the Onward Shift Podcast shares honest conversations about stress, suicide, addiction, identity and recovery. Sometimes hearing another person describe a familiar experience helps us find language for our own.

What Employers Must Do

Train managers to recognise signs of distress and respond appropriately. Include mental health in routine briefings instead of limiting it to one awareness week each year. Make Employee Assistance Programmes and external services easy to find, and explain clearly how confidentiality works.

Mental health toolbox talks designed for construction can help teams start these conversations using language that feels relevant on site. A poster has more value when it is supported by regular conversations, trusted leaders and a clear route to professional help.

4. Culture, Isolation and Addiction: What Can Hide Behind “Banter”

Construction banter can create connection. It helps people laugh through difficult days and can make a team feel close. It can also be used to disguise bullying, humiliation and exclusion.

The difference is often found in who is laughing and who is expected to absorb the joke. If one person regularly becomes the target, changes their behaviour or dreads coming to work, the culture is causing harm. Acas guidance on workplace bullying gives examples of behaviour employers and workers should take seriously.

New starters can be particularly vulnerable. Being told to sink or swim without proper mentoring may be defended as tradition, but it teaches people that asking questions is unsafe. That affects mental health and physical safety because workers become less willing to admit when they are unsure.

Isolation creates another layer. Many people work away from home, live in hotels or move between projects without building stable support networks. They may be surrounded by people all day yet have nobody they trust enough to call when the shift ends.

Alcohol or drugs can become a way to switch off, sleep, numb difficult feelings or connect socially. Over time, coping can become dependence. Shame then makes it harder to seek help, particularly when addiction is treated as a moral failing.

What Individuals Can Do

If your drinking or drug use is becoming difficult to control, you do not have to wait until everything falls apart. Speak to your GP or a specialist service. Free peer-support options include Alcoholics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous UK and Marijuana Anonymous UK.

Connection also matters. Onward Shift’s free Walk & Talk events give people a relaxed way to meet, walk and talk without pressure. They are not a replacement for treatment, but they can help reduce the loneliness that allows problems to grow in silence.

What Employers Must Do

Challenge bullying consistently, regardless of seniority or employment status. Give new workers proper supervision and someone they can ask for help. Check in with people working away from home and make sure alcohol is not the only form of team socialising available.

Create a clear substance-use policy that prioritises safety while giving people a realistic route towards support and recovery. A worker should understand what happens if they ask for help before an incident occurs.

5. Leadership Pressure: The People Supporting Everyone Else Need Support Too

Site managers, supervisors, project managers and directors carry pressure from several directions. They are expected to protect their teams, recover programmes, manage clients, control costs and answer to senior leadership. Problems travel upwards and downwards, often stopping with the person in the middle.

Managers may believe they cannot admit to struggling because everyone depends on them. The old response of “man up” makes that isolation worse. A leader can spend the day checking on dozens of people without anyone asking how they are coping.

Unsupported pressure affects the way people lead. Exhaustion can make a manager impatient, distant or reactive. Communication becomes rushed. Small issues turn into conflict. The manager may care deeply about the team but have too little capacity left to show it.

What Leaders Can Do

Build a small network of peers with whom you can speak honestly. Delegate instead of carrying every decision alone. Protect some separation between work and home, even if that begins with simple boundaries around non-urgent calls and emails.

Good leadership includes self-awareness. Notice when you are becoming short-tempered, detached or unable to switch off. Those signs deserve attention before they begin shaping every decision you make.

What Companies Must Do

Give managers training in mental health, difficult conversations and psychologically safe leadership. Make sure they know where to refer a worker and where to find support for themselves. Review whether management spans, reporting demands and project expectations are realistic.

Peer-support groups or facilitated leadership sessions can create space for managers to discuss difficult situations without feeling exposed. Onward Shift supports construction companies through lived-experience talks, toolbox talks, workplace wellbeing support and practical resources designed for the realities of the industry.

What Real Mental Health Support Looks Like

Real support is not one service or campaign. It is a system that people can trust.

It begins with the way work is planned. Deadlines, workloads, staffing and communication should be treated as mental health factors because they directly affect stress. Leaders must be trained, but they also need enough time and authority to act on what workers tell them.

Support should be visible to everybody, including agency staff, subcontractors, self-employed workers and people moving between projects. It should include confidential professional help, practical information about money and addiction, clear reporting routes for bullying and regular opportunities for connection.

Most importantly, the response to disclosure has to be compassionate and useful. When somebody says they are struggling, they are often watching closely to see whether honesty was a mistake. Being listened to, taken seriously and helped towards the right support can influence whether they continue talking or return to silence.

The Industry Cannot Afford to Wait

Construction needs skilled people, strong leaders and teams who can think clearly under pressure. None of that is sustainable when exhaustion, financial fear, addiction and loneliness are treated as private problems that workers should manage alone.

If you lead a company, start by asking where pressure is building in your business. Look at workloads, payment practices, working hours, staffing and communication before launching another awareness campaign. Speak to people on the tools, including subcontractors and new starters, and be willing to hear an answer that may be uncomfortable.

If you work in the industry and recognise yourself in this article, begin with one step. Speak to somebody you trust. Save a support number. Attend a meeting. Write down what has been happening. You do not have to solve everything today.

Onward Shift was built for the people who keep construction moving. Through support for individuals, businesses, free resources and honest conversations, the aim is to make sure fewer people feel they have to carry everything alone.

The industry already knows how to build safely. Now we need to apply that same care to the people doing the building.

Take a deep breath. Think about the pressure you are carrying, or the person beside you who may be carrying more than they show. Then start one honest conversation.

That is where change begins.