Professional ethics for UK construction professionals

The construction industry has a number of unique characteristics, including a temporary organisational structure, and it is one of the most dangerous of all industries. Therefore, it is important for construction professionals to have a high level of professional ethics. However, the public standing of construction professional ethics may not be high and it attracts a lot of attention.

This paper investigates UK construction professionals' view on professional ethics. The issues which are investigated for quantity surveyors include their view on ethical behaviours, their ranking and rating of parties and constituencies when they face ethical dilemmas and their opinion on whether they think the ethical standards have declined over the last decade. The paper also outlined the UK construction managers' view on the ethical perception of other construction managers. In addition, the factors influencing the ethical decision making of the UK quantity surveyors and construction managers are also identified. Furthermore, the background of influence on the views of professional ethics is also outlined.

The research method of the project is through questionnaire survey, one set of questionnaires was sent to quantity surveyor and the other was sent to construction managers. The questions in the questionnaires are developed from the previous literature.