Mr Farmer will be joined on the speakers’ rostrum by BBC ‘business doctor’ Dr Paul T Thomas and the deputy Mayor of London Shirley Rodrigues, who will debate important changes to the capital’s planning laws and environmental strategy.

The full day event at the four-star Park Plaza Riverbank hotel will focus heavily on how companies in the building engineering sector can achieve technical compliance and business efficiency to meet the many commercial challenges they now face.

The conference will also have a strong technical content with streams covering Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), district heating, and refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pumps.

Leading authorities on mental health, diversity and training funding will also address the conference and offer practical support.

Mr Farmer pulled no punches in his 2016 review, which he carried out on behalf of the Construction Leadership Council. He established that many of the industry’s problems could be traced to poor profitability that, in turn, starves employers of investment in skills and innovation.

The BESA conference will be a rare opportunity to discuss the report’s findings with its author and establish how the building engineering sector is responding by developing new models to manage projects more effectively, including the wider use of digital processes.

The technical sessions will consider how buildings can be turned into ‘safe havens’ from rising air pollution, and how to make district heating schemes more efficient. They will also look at the likely impact on the refrigeration and air conditioning sector of the growing popularity of heat pumps and a rapid shift in the use of refrigerant gases as a result of the F-gas phase down of HFCs.

In addition, there will be a series of seminars led by the BESA’s commercial and legal team, offering tailored advice on day-to-day contractual issues, late payment and staff engagement.

As well as the busy conference programme, there will be an exhibition of innovative products and services drawn from across the industry. The event will conclude with a black tie awards dinner celebrating the best of the sector’s national apprenticeship talent and announcing BESA’s annual management and Contractor of the Year awards.

For more information and to register for the BESA National Conference and Awards, go to www.thebesaconference.com.