Construction

Overview

This page provides high-level information and data on the Construction industry which comprises six main industry sectors:

Building Completion Services
Building Installation Services
Building Structure Services
General Construction and Demolition
Signage and Building Surveying
Specialist Construction Services.

Note: occupations involved in building maintenance/renovation are included in the relevant building sector.

The Construction industry is focused on the construction, demolition, renovation, maintenance or repair of building and infrastructure. It covers a wide range of services, from planning and surveying to structural construction to finishing services such as painting and decorating. The Construction industry generates over $350 billion in revenue, producing around 8% of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product, and has a projected annual growth rate of 2.5% in the next five years.

Most businesses in this industry are either sole traders or very small, employing less than 20 people. They also tend to be Australian owned, with sales occurring in the domestic market. Construction materials are, however, increasingly imported from overseas.

This industry is heavily regulated in many sectors and occupations, with regulations at every level of government. The VET sector plays an important role in the licencing of many occupations in this sector, with regulators requiring completion of VET programs or subjects to grant licences.

The Construction industry differs from most others in that many states operate training levy schemes for Construction through industry training boards. The training levies are applied as a portion of the cost of a construction project, although there are variations between the states as to how the levy schemes operate. The money collected through the levy is available to cover training costs for workers in the industry. For more information on specific levy schemes, links to the relevant bodies are available under the links and resources heading.

This information has been sourced from the Construction, Plumbing and Services IRC's 2018 Skills Forecast.

All data sources are available at the end of the page.

IRC and Skills Forecasts

Construction, Plumbing and Services Industry Reference Committee

Employment and training snapshot

Employment in the Construction industry increased between 2000 and 2018, with a slight fall in 2012 that has now been recovered. Employment reached nearly 1,118,000 in 2018 and is projected to exceed 1,300,000 by 2023. The most common VET-related occupation in this industry is Carpenters and Joiners, at 9.5% of the total workforce. Employment in this occupation is projected to grow by 5% between 2018 and 2023. During the same period, employment for other VET-related occupations such as Construction Managers, and Plumbers is also expected to grow by over 13% and 11% respectively.

Program enrolments in Construction fluctuated between 2014 and 2017, with a high of approximately 205,900 in 2015. Program completions in this industry show a similar pattern, however subject-only enrolments have grown steadily over the same period. There were approximately 145,000 subject-only enrolments in Construction during 2014, rising to over 247,000 in 2017.

Industry insights on skills needs

The Construction, Plumbing and Services IRC's 2018 Skills Forecast outlined the five most important generic skills needs for the next three to five years. They were:

managerial/leadership skills
language, literacy and numeracy (LLN)
customer service/marketing
design mindset/thinking critically/system thinking/solving problems
technology use and application.

Additionally, the top employability skills requested by employers included:

life skills (including money and time management, organisation and planning)
adaptability
good work ethic (attitude, reliability, desire to work hard)
work health and safety
resilience.

The top priority industry and occupation skills are:

bricklaying
carpentry and joinery
solid plastering
plumbing
wall and floor tiling.

According to the job vacancy data, the top requested skills by employers were communication and planning. The most advertised Construction occupations were Architectural, Building and Surveying Technician followed by Contract, Program and Project Administrator. The top employers in this industry were Lend Lease Corporation Limited, KBR Incorporated, John Holland, Visionstream and Cimic Group.

The above Skills Forecast underscores the importance for those in the Construction industry to maintain the skills to work within a changing regulatory landscape. There are a number of technological and policy changes that are driving rapid industry-wide change, all of which may have an impact on industry regulation. As the VET sector has an important role in the training and licencing of workers in this industry, it is vital that training remains current to meet regulatory requirements.

The Skills Forecast also reports the outcomes of the senate inquiry into non-conforming building products and the recommendations of the Australian Building Ministers’ Forum commissioned report, Building confidence, are likely to have a far-reaching effect. The 24 recommendations address the registration and training of practitioners, roles and responsibilities of regulators, the role of fire authorities, integrity of private building surveyors, collecting and sharing building information and intelligence, adequacy of documentation and record keeping, inspection regimes, post-construction information management, and building product safety.

Key drivers for change in the industry and the CPC Construction, Plumbing and Services Training Package, according to the above Skills Forecast, include:

Ageing population, specifically the increase in older workers in the industry. The skill replacement gap is increasing. The need to replace larger numbers of high skilled workers in the future raises the issue of the future supply and if the current apprenticeship system can produce the numbers required.
Digitisation, artificial intelligence and automation. Although the industry is yet to experience significant digital disruption, major technological advances in everyday digital technology, automation for lower-skilled jobs, building information modelling (BIM) and prefabrication will require the workforce to be trained, re-trained and upskilled for the new jobs and tasks required.
Prefabrication is gaining more acceptance in Australia and will require construction workers with different skill-sets. Training for workers in prefabrication will need to come from manufacturing and construction training packages.
Empowered customers, specifically demanding smart and green construction. Workers will need to keep their skills and knowledge up to date regarding advances in both green and smart construction practices.
Skills mismatch. Businesses are typically small-scale with 20 employees or less. It can be difficult to give their apprentices the full range of skilling opportunities that are needed to fulfil the requirements of a traditional apprenticeship.

This is supported by the Industry Outlook 2018-19 by Construction Skills Queensland (CSQ) which states the Construction industry is being disrupted both technologically and demographically. The ageing profile of Australia’s population means there needs to be an acceptance of innovations in construction that allow older workers to remain in, or women to enter, the industry. Increasing productivity, addressing the industry’s polarised culture of a highly-educated professional class and low-to-mid skilled class of labourers and tradespeople, and dealing with 99% of construction businesses being small businesses with limited capacity to invest will all need to be accelerated. The most likely innovations are offsite construction (prefabrication), automation and robotics, and digitisation (including Building Information Modelling (BIM)).

The Digital Foundations report produced by StartupAUS in collaboration with Aconex, Lendlease, EY and the Victorian Government presents cases for the Construction industry using digital technologies including cloud-based management software, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, Building Information Modelling (BIM), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, virtual reality (VR), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and digital marketplaces. The Industry Outlook by CSQ concludes a shift to offsite construction will have significant consequences as it implies a structural rebalancing away from construction toward manufacturing, and difficulty determining which points in supply chains qualify as ‘construction’. Requirements of building regulators and industrial instruments reflect the traditional industry structure of licensed trades working onsite. As companies begin to depart from this model, and individuals demand more scope to craft unique skilling and career pathways, regulators will need to adjust flexibly to meet the new ways of delivering construction outcomes.

The Construction Sector Profile by the Training and Skills Commission warns that the retention of apprentices in this industry is becoming more difficult due to increasing expectations and willingness to move jobs in order to seek better opportunities. The profile notes school-based apprenticeships show good completion rates despite their unique challenges. Funding of pre-vocational training for apprentices is reported as being constrained, meaning it is more difficult to ensure apprentices can be productive on the job during the early stages of their study.

The Construction Technologies Sector Strategy by the State Government of Victoria notes three main areas of focus for enabling growth in the Construction industry: implementation of new digital technologies, use of off-site construction technologies and the use of new construction materials and products. For these areas to be integrated into existing businesses in the industry, workers must be able to efficiently and safely use them in their everyday work. Workers may require training to be able to best use these and future developments, highlighting the role VET can play in developing the future of the Construction industry.

Links and resources

Below is a list of industry-relevant organisations and associations. Hyperlinks have been included where available.

Sector Profile Construction 2016 – Training and Skills Commission

Data sources and notes

Department of Employment 2018, Employment Projections, available from the Labour Market Information Portal:

by ANZSIC 1 digit Division E Construction Industry, employment projections to May 2023
by ANZSCO, selected occupations, employment projections to May 2023
- 3121 Architectural, Building and Surveying Technicians
- 8211 Building and Plumbing Labourers
- 3312 Carpenters and Joiners
- 1331 Construction Managers
- 3411 Electricians
- 3322 Painting Trades Workers
- 3341 Plumbers.

Australian Bureau of Statistics 2018, Employed persons by industry group of main job (ANZSIC), Sex, State and Territory, November 1984 onwards, 6291.0.55.003 - EQ06, viewed 1 November 2018 http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6291.0.55.003May%202018?OpenDocument

Employed total by ANZSIC 1 digit Division E Construction Industry, 2000 to 2018, May quarter.

Australian Bureau of Statistics 2017, 2016 Census – Employment, Income and Unpaid Work, TableBuilder. Findings based on use of ABS TableBuilder data.

Employment level by 1 digit Division E Construction Industry, and 4 digit level occupations to identify the relevant VET-related occupations in the industry as a proportion of the total workforce.

Training data has been extracted from the National VET Provider Collection, Total VET Students and Courses from the following training packages or qualifications:

CPC Construction, Plumbing and Services
BCF Off-Site Construction
BCG General Construction
BCP Plumbing and Services.

This includes superseded qualifications and training packages.

Data covers a range of selected student and training characteristics in the following categories and years:

2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 program enrolments
2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 program completions
2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 subject enrolments

Total VET students and courses data is reported for the calendar year. Program enrolments are the qualifications, courses and skill-sets in which students are enrolled in a given period. For students enrolled in multiple programs, all programs are counted. Program completion indicates that a student has completed a structured and integrated program of education or training. Location data uses student residence. Subject enrolment is the registration of a student at a training delivery location for the purpose of undertaking a module, unit of competency or subject. For more information on the terms and definitions, please refer to the Total VET students and courses: terms and definitions document.

Low counts (less than five) are not reported to protect client confidentiality.

Percentages are rounded to one decimal place. This can lead to situations where the total sum of proportions in a chart may not add up to exactly 100%.

CPC Construction, Plumbing and Services, BCF Off-Site Construction, BCG General Construction and BCP Plumbing and Services Training Packages apprentice and trainee data has been extracted from the National Apprentice and Trainee Collection, including:

2010 to 2017 commencements
2010 to 2017 completions
2017 apprentices and trainees in-training October to December 2017 collection, by qualification and state and territory of data submitter.

Priority skills data have been extracted from the Construction, Plumbing and Services IRC's 2018 Skills Forecast.

Job vacancy data have been extracted from Burning Glass Technologies 2018, Labor Insight Real-time Labor Market Information Tool, Burning Glass Technologies, Boston, viewed July 2018, https://www.burning-glass.com.

Data shown represent most requested generic skills, occupations and employers according to internet job postings in Australia between July 2015 and June 2018 filtered by ANZSIC and ANZSCO classification levels listed below.

Generic skills / Occupations
- ANZSCO major groups excluding Sales Workers
- Construction.
Employers
- 3121 Architectural, Building and Surveying Technicians
- 5111 Contract, Program and Project Administrators
- 2332 Civil Engineering Professionals
- 3411 Electricians
- 3312 Carpenters and Joiners
- Construction.

Updated: 11 Sep 2019

Construction

Sectors

Overview

IRC and Skills Forecasts

Industry cluster snapshot

Employment and training snapshot

Industry insights on skills needs

Links and resources

Industry associations and advisory bodies

Regulatory bodies

Employee associations

Relevant research

Data sources and notes