A North West construction leader, who began his career as a joiner, is sharing how the housebuilding sector has changed over the last 30 years. He explains how he continues to fight unprecedented challenges.
Craig Murphy, Regional Managing Director at MCI Developments, a subsidiary of Keepmoat, shares his experience and industry insight.
Originally from Wigan, Craig began working on building sites across the North West straight from school as a shuttering joiner, before joining McLean Homes, where he first developed an understanding of site management.
Later, Craig progressed through roles with Redrow and George Wimpey. He rose from Assistant Site Manager to Site Manager and won several internal and national awards for excellence.
After moving into a Contracts Manager role, where he was responsible for leading other managers for the first time, Craig joined Haslam Homes in 2007, which later became Keepmoat. His role was to lead construction in what was then a start-up North West region.
Shortly after, the global financial crisis placed significant pressure on the housebuilding sector. However, Keepmoat’s partnership-led model enabled the business to continue building.
As the market recovered, the North West region experienced sustained growth, delivering more than 670 homes per year by 2017 compared to 78 in its first year.
This success led Craig to be promoted first to Operations Director and later to Regional Managing Director. He established a new office, recruited a senior leadership team and oversaw growth towards a 500-home annual target.
Following organisational changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, Craig was appointed to lead MCI Developments – Keepmoat’s contracting arm. The move marked a significant shift into a contracting-focused environment, requiring integration into the wider Keepmoat group while navigating hyperinflation and delays to affordable housing funding programmes.
Craig Murphy shares his thoughts
Craig explains: “MCI is an affordable homes specialist, we unlock land and deliver high quality affordable homes for registered providers such as housing associations, local authorities and investors.
“Every stage of my career has brought new challenges and the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that success is about building the right team around you. You can’t do it alone. We’re still operating in a period of unprecedented change for housebuilding, with new legislation requirements surrounding Biodiversity Net Gain, Net Zero and the Building Safety Act, placing increasing demands on housebuilders across the UK.
“At MCI, managing our way through this period will be a real challenge, but like all the other challenges over the years, we will deal with them and respond in a positive way to make sure we keep delivering the much-needed homes this country so desperately needs.”
Keepmoat is a top 10 UK partnership homebuilder with a track record of delivering quality new homes across the UK at prices people can afford. To date, almost 70 percent of its current developments are on brownfield sites.
