From the city’s historic commercial buildings to major infrastructure projects delivered across New Zealand, southern construction companies have helped shape the built environment the country relies on every day.
Naylor Love is one of those companies. Founded in Dunedin in 1910, it has grown into New Zealand’s largest privately owned construction firm, delivering projects nationwide while still carrying the practical culture the South is known for.
Like many people from Otago, I grew up knowing the Naylor Love name long before I ever stepped into governance.
Today the company works across the country, but its southern heritage still influences the way it approaches the business. Construction tends to attract people who value practical solutions, teamwork and the satisfaction that comes from building something that will serve communities for decades.
It is also an industry that operates under more uncertainty than many people realise.
I joined the Naylor Love board in 2018 and became chair in 2022. Coming into the sector from a background in governance and human resources gave me a slightly different lens on how construction businesses operate.
What struck me early on was the contrast between the capability within construction companies and the structural volatility of the environment they operate in.
Construction is fundamentally a project-by-project industry. Even the most experienced firms are constantly balancing the desire to retain skilled teams with the reality that the next major contract is never guaranteed.
Margins are tight, projects are complex and timelines can be unforgiving. Leadership teams are always managing a delicate balance between investing in people and capability while navigating an uncertain pipeline of future work.
That dynamic makes the resilience of the sector all the more impressive.
One of the clearest examples came during the Covid-19 pandemic. The sudden shutdown of work sites created enormous uncertainty across the industry.
What stood out during that period was the willingness of companies, government agencies and industry organisations to work together to find practical solutions. All parties collaborated, information was shared and the focus quickly shifted to getting the sector safely back to work.
It was a reminder that construction is not simply another commercial industry. It plays a central role in New Zealand’s economic capability.
If we want to build hospitals, schools, and the infrastructure needed for growing communities, construction will be central to delivering that future.
But for the sector to invest confidently in skills, innovation and workforce capability, it needs greater long-term certainty around the work ahead.
What the sector needs is greater certainty about the pipeline of work ahead. Infrastructure planning that looks beyond the next political cycle would allow construction companies to retain talent, invest in capability and develop the skills New Zealand will need in the decades ahead.
Construction companies operate in an environment where the workload can fluctuate dramatically depending on when major projects are released. When infrastructure investment follows short political cycles, the result is a stop–start pipeline that makes long-term workforce planning difficult. Greater certainty around future projects would allow companies to retain skilled teams, invest in innovation and build the capability needed for the next generation of infrastructure.
Greater visibility around infrastructure planning would not remove competition from the market, nor should it. But it would allow construction companies to invest more confidently in training, technology and the next generation of skilled professionals.
Construction offers far more career paths than many people realise. Alongside trades on site are roles in engineering, digital design, project management, procurement, logistics and sustainability.
For many people, construction provides the opportunity to work on projects that shape the physical landscape of the country. Few industries offer the same sense of tangible impact.
Ensuring the sector has the capability and confidence to keep delivering that impact is a shared responsibility.
As a governor, I often think about stewardship. Governance is ultimately about leaving an organisation stronger and better prepared for the future than when you arrived.
For a company like Naylor Love, which has been part of New Zealand’s construction sector for more than a century, that responsibility carries particular weight.
The buildings constructed today will serve communities for decades. In the same way, the decisions we make about capability, people and investment today will shape the future strength of the industry itself.
When construction is working well, it does more than deliver projects.
It helps build the future of New Zealand.
- Jackie Lloyd grew up in Dunedin and is chairwoman of Naylor Love, New Zealand’s largest privately owned construction company.
