Articles | $450 billion in civil projects up for grabs, but the w

 

 

 

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$450 billion in civil projects up for grabs, but the workforce must almost double to fill the skills shortage

 

 

 

As the recent data from Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (IPA) and Deloitte into Australia’s public infrastructure pipeline highlights, civil contractors continue to face major skills shortages and capacity issues in meeting the record demand for infrastructure projects. 

Australia’s pipeline of infrastructure works continues to grow, which is fantastic for our economy and our nation. IPA reports that Australia will see an average quarterly spend of 16 billion dollars nationwide.  This expenditure encompasses road, rail and major energy projects across Australia.

However, there is a very real risk of delays and cost blowouts due to a lack of skilled workers in the Civil Industry. The IPA indicates we’re already seeing an acute shortage of high-end skills, such as tunnelling and signalling engineers and project directors.

IPA’s new data in fact reveals that between July 2022 and October 2024, the infrastructure sector will need to grow its total workforce by nearly 43.4 per cent to meet the demands of the coming pipeline.

“With $AUD450 billion worth of upcoming winnable opportunities in the major project market, this workforce challenge will only intensify,’’ says IPA’s Chief Executive Adrian Dwyer. 
According to the IPA, one solution to meeting this skills gap is to bring about reform to Australia’s skilled migration program. But to solve this issue we’ll need to do more than simply hire overseas workers.

With the sector in need of more workers, and particularly those with “high-end” skills, we need to focus our efforts on attracting and retaining local talent. 
At ICI we’ve recognised the need to attract and retain people in our industry and we can achieve by focusing on improving the existing skillsets within the civil sector, including technical, business, people management and leadership skills.

There are a variety of career paths that people can take within this industry but they need to know what opportunities are available to them and to have the chance to pursue learning paths that will help them advance in their chosen fields.  

Real-time data on Australia’s pipeline forecast from Infrastructure Partnerships Australia can be downloaded here

By Lee Gabbett, General Manager, The Institute of Civil Infrastructure (ICI) 
 

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