Lord Henry Wotton in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray says: “The only people to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much younger than myself. They seem in front of me. Life has revealed to them her latest wonder.”

Listening to younger people is something that the construction industry often does badly. This is not because younger people don’t engage in public or political processes. The 2016 EU Referendum saw 64% of 18- to 24-year-olds voting, a higher percentage than at any general election since 1992.

We are living, however, in a time when there has been a seismic shift in the ways in which younger people engage in public life. Put simply, they are major consumers of social media and we need to understand and use these popular platforms to reach them.

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